by A. J. Burnes
He was almost home free. He had this. He could…
Tanner blinked, and suddenly, the way ahead was not as clear as it had been a split second before.
Halfway across the bridge stood seven figures in a row. Each was blurry and indistinct, made more of shadow than light. Each one had the same height and the same build. Each remained stock-still, not just unmoving but entirely inanimate. Around them, the very fabric of reality seemed to bend inward, all the colors blending together until they merged with the dark outlines of each figure’s silhouette.
The figures stood before him for less than one second. But in that fractured moment, they invoked within Tanner a feeling far greater than fear. A feeling that clawed out of the primordial ooze that existed in the ancient history of the blood that flowed through Tanner’s body. A feeling that was at once everything and nothing, beginning and end, alpha and omega, all that a human being could feel tangled into a giant, roiling ball of utter chaos.
A feeling that the whole wide world was about to crumble around him, and the next time he looked up, the sky would be falling down in great jagged shards, revealing an infinite expanse of nothing beyond it. A feeling that this black void was going to swallow him whole—and swallow the entirety of existence along with him.
Rocked to his very core, Tanner lost his footing and fell face first onto the sidewalk.
When he peeled his bleeding cheek from the concrete, the figures were gone.
The sable wight, however, was right behind him.
With all his gain lost, Tanner’s urgency returned threefold. He grabbed the bridge railing, heaved himself up, and dashed down the sidewalk. The wight loped after him, covering five feet for every step that Tanner took, closing fast, too fast. When he felt that cold breath bathe his neck in the stench of death once again, Tanner knew he wasn’t going to make it across the bridge.
The wight was going to tackle him and eat him alive right out in the open. Those in Benton Court with the Third Sight would watch the wight kill him, and then casually resume their own business once the show was over. Those without the Sight would see something very illogical occur, and likely dismiss the whole thing to retain their peace of mind.
Since there would be no body left behind, Tanner would be written off as just another missing person. His parents would sit on that terrible fence between hope and grief forever. And Saul, wherever he was, would only learn what had happened to his twin after Muntz realized there’d been a mix-up.
No, he thought in a panic. I can’t get erased like that!
The spindly fingers of the sable wight brushed against the back of his neck, and Tanner let out a frustrated scream that preceded a bold, unpredictable, and stupid decision. He leaped sideways, up onto the railing of the bridge, then pushed off with every ounce of strength his quivering legs possessed.
The sable wight, moving too fast to turn on a dime, tripped over its own gangly limbs and rolled down the sidewalk. By the time it got up and peered over the railing, Tanner was a few feet from the surface of the rushing river. By the time it climbed up onto the railing, Tanner was in the river, having smacked the surface like it was a pane of glass.
Breath knocked out of his lungs, Tanner plunged into the cold, churning depths. Water surged up his nostrils, into his mouth, down his throat. And before he could get his bearings, tell left from right or up from down, the powerful current took hold of him and swept him away.
Chapter Fourteen
Saul
The callback from the provost of Weatherford College interrupted their second lunch of barbecue chicken wings and waffle fries at Vinnie’s Bar & Grill. Saul, by virtue of throwing up his first lunch, ate twice as much as everyone else. He was making a grab for the last two wings in the basket when Adeline’s phone started blaring the Game of Thrones opening song.
Adeline licked the barbecue sauce off her fingers, swiped the green button to answer, and put the call on speakerphone before she said, “Special Agent Adeline Napier.”
The team was in their usual solitary nook at the back of the dining room, and the sound from the TV above the bar canceled out any snippets of conversation that drifted away from their table. They’d been coming to Vinnie’s at least once a week since they became a team, and while Joe the bartender always gave them a side-eye that said, “I know you guys are up to some weird shit,” none of the regulars had caught on to the fact that the feds in the corner booth were a wizard, a werewolf, a psychic, and a necromancer.
That status quo held true today, as the college provost spoke in hushed tones, barely audible over the TV, “Ah, hello again, Agent Napier. I’m calling regarding the matter we spoke of earlier. I believe I have a candidate for the…the body you found.”
Adeline leaned closer to the phone. “Okay. So who is she?”
“Marlene Witherspoon. Age eighteen. Freshman.” His voice wavered with a touch of sorrow. “Some friends of hers responded to the email I sent out to the student body and staff. They said that Marlene was supposed to meet them for lunch but never showed, and she stopped responding to texts and social media messages shortly after ten o’clock this morning. Which fits the timeframe you provided.”
“I see.” Adeline picked up a fry and dipped it in the puddle of ketchup she’d squirted onto the edge of her plate. “Well, we’ll need to interview those friends as soon as possible. Can we get their contact details?”
“Actually, the girls are outside my office, and their classes have finished for the day. So if you can come now…”
Adeline glanced at Jack as she tossed the fry into her mouth. When Jack nodded, she said, “That works. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“All right. I’ll let the girls know,” replied the provost. “Is there anything I should tell them before you arrive?”
“Nope. Just the opposite.” She wiped her greasy hands off with a napkin and tossed it onto Saul’s plate, where it stuck to the last wing he’d pilfered from the basket. “We’d prefer that you tell them absolutely nothing. If you shock them with news about a dead body, it might make them second-guess their memories, or upset them to the point where they can’t tell us anything relevant.”
“Of course,” he said apologetically. “I understand.”
“If that’s all, Mr. Banning?”
“Yes, that’s everything, Agent Napier.”
“Then we’ll see you in a few minutes.” Adeline hit the end call button and groaned. “Oh man. Now we don’t have time for dessert.”
Jill drained the last of her soda and said, “Not true. We can grab cookies at the register. Allison always keeps some warm for us.”
Adeline clicked her tongue. “I like the apple pie better.”
“Tough.” Jack slid out of the booth and motioned for the rest of them to follow. “Interviews are more important than pie.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone with a brain,” Saul muttered, poking Adeline in the side with his fork to coax her out of the booth.
Adeline slapped the fork out of his hand, and it landed with a splat in her puddle of ketchup. “You don’t get to call me brainless, Reiz. You failed your GED test three times.”
Saul raised his eyebrows. “Hey, I have brain damage from a serious vehicular accident. You, however, have no excuse for burning through five different boarding schools.”
“Pfft, I should’ve burned them down.”
“If you’d done that,” Jack said, zipping up his navy-blue FBI rain jacket, “you’d still be in prison.”
“Ah,” she said with faux nostalgia, “those were the days.”
Outside, the sky was pouring buckets, and the wind was driving the rain down at an angle that soaked their shoes and pants even while they stood beneath the front awning of Vinnie’s. At Jack’s behest, Saul and Adeline played a game of rock, paper, scissors to decide who would walk down the street to retrieve the car.
Like usual, Saul lost because Adeline cheated by changing her selection midway through the “shoo
t”—something Jack and Jill pretended not to notice—and he trudged out into the storm wearing a pout more befitting of a sulking teenager than a man just south of thirty.
Five minutes and a great deal of toweling off later, they found themselves traveling at a snail’s pace down one of the city’s major highways. Up ahead, a tractor-trailer had hydroplaned into a four-way intersection, striking several vehicles before smashing into a crosswalk pole, and cops in bright-yellow raincoats were sluggishly directing traffic around the accident scene.
“You should’ve said twenty minutes,” Jill muttered to Adeline.
“How was I supposed to know this would happen?” Adeline snapped. “You’re the psychic.”
Jill shrugged. “I can’t see everything.”
“Of that, I am all too aware.” Adeline rapped her boot against the floor. “You ‘lost’ your glasses in that diner yesterday…while they were sitting on the counter right in front of you.”
Jill frowned, touching her glasses. The lenses were worryingly thick for someone her age. And they would keep on getting thicker. Because every time she had a vision, the strain to her eyes worsened her sight ever so slightly.
Jill caught twice as many visions as the average precog, and though she had the ability to dismiss oncoming visions before they fully resolved, her visions were typically so important that she felt compelled to accept any that came when she wasn’t in a dangerous situation. At the rate she was going though, she’d be legally blind by the time she was fifty.
Saul spun around in the front passenger seat and shot Adeline a cold look. “That topic is off-limits, and you know it.”
Adeline flinched at his tone and shamefully said to Jill, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hit your sore spot.”
“If you’re actually sorry”—Jill turned up her nose—“then give me your cookie.”
“Seriously?”
Jill didn’t repeat herself.
“Fine,” Adeline sighed, and handed over the chocolate chip cookie wrapped in its little paper baggie.
Jack, who’d been watching this exchange through the rearview mirror, shook his head. “Sometimes, I think I need to send you guys back to kindergarten for a—”
“All units, be advised,” came the loud, crackling voice of Gary Coleridge, the Castle’s dispatcher, over the car’s scanner radio, “a twenty-four thirty-one has been reported in the vicinity of west Benton Court, near the Karthen Street Bridge. Multiple casualties reported. Requesting at least two units respond ASAP.”
“Twenty-four thirty-one?” Adeline said. “Isn’t that the code for ‘sable wight on the loose’?”
“It is,” Jack confirmed.
Jill gasped. “But it’s still daytime.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Saul tapped on his rain-streaked window. “A sable wight’s body only breaks down under direct sunlight. The storm is filtering the light enough for the wight to withstand it.”
Adeline pursed her lips. “Wights are usually cautious enough to remain inside during the day no matter the weather conditions. If this thing’s running around on the outskirts of Benton Court, where there are few places for it to hide if and when the sun comes out…”
Jack squeezed the steering wheel. “Someone pissed it off.”
“Probably one of those casualties.” Saul dropped his hands into his lap. “We responding?”
“Only if no one else is available.” Jack eyed the radio, waiting for an update from Gary.
It came through thirty seconds later: “All units, be advised that Blue Jay and Sandpiper are responding to the twenty-four thirty-one. Situational update pending.”
“That’s Romano and Berkowitz,” Jack said. “They can handle a sable wight.”
“Aw, I was looking forward to some action,” Adeline whined.
“You’ll get it,” Saul replied, “as soon as we catch up to Muntz.”
The atmosphere in the car grew taut like a piano string ready to snap.
Muntz often had that effect on people.
“Back to the task at hand then.” Jack crossed the troublesome intersection, following the gestures of the traffic cops. He took a detour along a backstreet to bring them around the south side of the Weatherford campus, where the ornate building that housed the provost’s office was located. He pulled the car into the small parking lot in front of the building and squeezed into the one narrow space left open.
Cutting the engine, Jack said, “Let’s get through this as quickly as we can. Muntz is already hours ahead of us, and we don’t want him slipping through our fingers again.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Saul opened his door into the downpour. “This time, I plan to strangle him.”
The provost, Walter Banning, met them at the door and led them up the left side of a fancy bifurcated staircase to the second floor. On the wooden bench just outside his office sat three teenage girls who barely looked old enough to drive, much less make decisions about their educations that would affect them for decades to come. The provost motioned for the girls to enter the office, and they filed in ahead of Saul’s team, with the provost bringing up the rear and closing the door behind them.
“Ladies,” Banning said, “these are the FBI agents I told you about. They’d like to ask you some questions regarding Ms. Witherspoon.”
“Is she okay?” asked one girl, a squat redhead with a smattering of freckles.
“That’s what we’re trying to ascertain,” Jack replied in the calm, authoritative voice that convinced most people they should obey his every command. “When did each of you last see Marlene?”
“I saw her just before eight,” said the blonde with a pixie cut. “We live on the same floor of Juniper Hall, so we usually run into each other when we’re coming and going from classes. I think she was heading out to her first class of the day. Some kind of literature seminar.”
“I saw her right after that seminar,” said the third girl, a stocky brunette with the sort of muscle tone you gained from playing contact sports. “We got coffee at the Starbucks near the library and talked a bit about our homework for a statistics class we’re both taking. But I had to go buy a few more books from the campus bookstore because I added another class this morning, so I couldn’t stick around for more than a few minutes. When I left, she was still drinking her coffee.”
The redhead sighed deeply. “I think I was the last one to see her. We ran into each other while she was leaving Starbucks. Our next classes were in the same building, so we were going to walk there together. But then Marlene spotted one of her professors heading to the library, and she said she needed to ask him something about the syllabus. So she ran off, and I kept on going…” Her lip wobbled. “She got hurt after I left her behind, didn’t she? That’s why the FBI is involved, right?”
The four agents exchanged sullen glances, and Jack said, “First things first. Do any of you have a picture of Marlene?”
The brunette took a step back, like she’d been struck. “You’re trying to identify a body.”
The other two girls blanched.
“Oh god,” said the blonde, tears brimming in her eyes. “Is Marlene dead?”
Jack raised his hands in a placating manner. “A young woman’s body was found, yes, and we are trying to find out who she is and what happened to her.”
The redhead pulled out her phone with a trembling hand and navigated to her Facebook app. She offered the phone to Jack and whispered, “This is Marlene’s profile.”
Jack took the phone, and the other three agents leaned in to examine the headshot of the teenage girl on the webpage. It was definitely the girl who’d been burned and tossed into a dumpster like a piece of garbage. Only in the picture, she was whole and healthy and smiling brightly. A snapshot of a teenager on the cusp of adulthood who’d been looking forward to a future, who’d been planning a life.
Saul swore to himself that he would take Muntz down for this. “I’m sorry,” he said to the girls, “but it looks like she may indeed be the right person
.”
The girls all broke down crying. Banning coaxed them to sit in front of his desk and offered them tissues, along with the usual platitudes people always tried to use to assuage the grief of others, like “It’ll be okay.” The girls knew better than that though, and they hugged each other desperately while they sobbed and sniffled and gasped. Until finally, that first awful wave of sorrow that crashed into people at the confirmation of terrible news receded, and they were left shaking, cheeks red, eyes puffy.
The team allowed them those few minutes to work through the shock, but they couldn’t wait forever.
“You,” Adeline started, nodding to the redhead, “said Marlene ran off to talk with a professor? Which professor?”
The redhead dabbed at her wet cheeks with a crumpled tissue and thought about it for a second. “Um, I don’t actually know his name. It was the professor for that eight AM seminar.”
“I can look up her schedule,” offered Banning.
“Please do,” Adeline said.
Banning sat in his plush leather chair and logged on to his computer. After a tense minute of clacking keys punctuated by the stifled hiccups of the grieving girls, he said, “Oh, that’s interesting.”
“What is?” Jack asked.
“A couple hours ago, I was copied in on an email chain regarding a complaint made by some students taking a course on Beowulf. They said that their professor, one of our new hires, failed to show up for class today, and he hasn’t responded to any emails or phone calls since early this morning.” He clicked his mouse a couple times. “That professor is the one Marlene went to speak with.”
“Hm,” Jack said. “Give us a minute, will you?”
The team drew away from the desk and huddled in the corner, speaking quietly.
“Maybe Marlene wasn’t Muntz’s target after all,” Jill murmured. “Maybe it was this professor who got mixed up with Muntz, and Marlene was just caught in the crossfire.”