The Last Keeper's Daughter

by Rebecca Trogner

  Hunter crouched down and walked to the phone beside Julia’s bed. He dialed dispatch from memory, and the night clerk immediately answered.

  Before the young man could finish his greeting Hunter was already speaking. “Look, this is Detective Hunter and . . .”

  “Detective, you’re a sly one. The inspector was just in here getting a few things. She said you were taking a lady friend to Mexico for a little rest.”

  “You saw the inspector?”

  “I did. I feel for her, what with her husband being hit by that car. She looked something awful.”

  There was a pause while Hunter decided on his next move.

  “Detective?” The young man asked.

  “Just wanted to be sure I was taken off the rolls.”

  “Yes, no problem there.”

  “Goodbye, then.”

  “Goodbye, sir.”

  He needed a safe place to think and figure this out. What he needed most of all was secure computer access. He went back to the bathroom and resumed standing on the loo. He watched and waited another hour, but didn’t see the man again. Whoever had been in his home knew he’d left. They could have followed him from the restaurant, or an even more disturbing thought, from the crime scene.

  Sliding down, his legs screaming with the strain of standing so long in an awkward position, he forced himself to walk slowly to Julia’s office. It was located in the basement with no outside access. Which was not an optimal location given the circumstances, but it did afford him a place with no windows. If someone came through the door he would be ready for them.

  First, he ran a few general searches on each of the team; nothing. He ran the crime scene, and again, nothing. Not expecting to find anything, he doggedly searched for information regarding the inspector’s husband. Every thread had been snipped off completely. He even ran a search on himself, just to make sure he hadn’t been wiped clean also.

  Knowing he should rest, but unable to, he let his adrenaline carry him forward. There was no reason he couldn’t hole up here until morning. He found quite a lot of information on Walter Ayres, an obscenely wealthy historian who lived in the United States. Now that was a rare breed, a wealthy historian. He didn’t need to research to know that Mr. Ayres had not made his money being a historian. He had a daughter named Lily. He was a widower. His wife had died years ago.

  Leaning closer to the display, Hunter clicked to enlarge a photo taken a couple years ago. No doubt that this was his man. A kidnapping gone wrong, he thought. Then why dismember the bodies? And what had the kidnappers used as a weapon? Who had enough power to do this good of a cover up job? Why go to all this trouble?

  Obviously, someone had gotten to the inspector’s husband. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to relinquish the case. Maybe they’d had to show her how serious they were by hurting her husband. However you looked at it, this was not good.

  Before the crime scene had been cleaned up, he’d secretly taken a few photos with his phone. Downloading the pictures, he inspected each photo of the bite marks. He wasn’t an expert, but these couldn’t be human teeth. The skin looked like it had been perforated by long razor sharp teeth, almost like a shark bite. A shark would bite down, shake, and then rip the flesh away from their prey. Could it be someone wearing prosthetic teeth to mimic an animal bite? Or could it be some sort of pagan ritual? How had they bitten through bone? The knee joints had been ripped apart, as had the hip juncture. Whoever or whatever had done this had exceptional strength.

  The other victim, Gibson, had been a member of The Legacy Foundation. Hunter typed in the website address. The site had the ubiquitous statement about how they were a historical society, and their association to the Knights Templar, of course. You couldn’t spit in England without hitting a historical society or a Templar devotee.

  Then he noticed a small rotating emblem at the bottom of the screen. He clicked on it and a banner appeared. “The Truth is but a Secret wrapped in Myth.”

  Innate intuition, honed by years on the force, told him this was something more than a group of old men retelling war stories and dressing up in robes. Most would enter the site, see there wasn’t anything of interest and move on. That was the problem; there should be more here. Why go to the trouble of setting up a site – and this one was very slick, not some hack at home cobbling it together – if this was all it contained? It was obviously meant to deter the casual searcher. Intelligence agencies were notorious for using sites such as this.

  Moving the cursor around, he searched for something imbedded that would let members access using a login. After a frustrating few minutes, he leaned back, causing the chair to teeter on two legs, and pondered what his next move would be.

  It was ten o’clock in the morning when he emerged from Julia’s basement and returned to his home. Hunter had no idea how the intruder had gotten inside. All the locks were still engaged and there were no broken windows. The intruder had left him a parting gift, a card propped up against his scotch bottle on the kitchen table. It seemed appropriate to finish off the remaining scotch.

  He rubbed the handwritten card between his fingers, feeling the raised engraving. He lifted it up to the light and read the watermark. Smythson. Impressed and annoyed at being impressed by something so snobbish as the right type of paper, he flipped over the note.

  It was visceral, his appreciation of the blue ink used to create a border around the edge. Deep, saturated blue, unlike anything he had seen before. He ran his thumb over the raised letters of the address. The Legacy Foundation, 28 St. James’s Street, London. Whoever this group was, they were in the one of the oldest and most prestigious parts of London.

  Turning the card over for probably the fiftieth time, he read again the handwritten portion.

  Detective Hunter,

  The door to knowledge and refuge await you. No harm shall befall your person here, and all shall be answered. Please present this card to the doorman.

  The script was beautiful, but not feminine. He knew a man had written this with careful attention to each scroll and loop. Hunter had an image of a feather quill and ink pot on a desk facing the Thames.

  Superstition and intuition were rarely spoken about in law enforcement, but everyone used some sort of sixth sense in their job. He thought of it as a deep base of knowledge that sorted itself out in one’s subconscious.

  He ran through everything he knew about the case. Why would this foundation contact him? Why would they send someone to his home? Who, or more importantly, what had murdered those men? How had they covered it up? Those were just the top few questions he had. They were luring him in with the promise of answers. And, by God, he had a slew of questions for them.

  He took a taxi to the address, and paused to stare at the building with the reassuring pressure of the automatic holstered at the small of his back. Before crossing the street, he looked both ways. It wouldn’t do to get run over now when he was so close.

  He was still two steps from the front door when it opened, and a very short man stood staring back at him. His mind raced through the various scenarios. Obviously they had wanted him to feel safe, but a midget seemed to be overplaying their cards a bit. Or was he the actual doorman?

  “Detective Hunter.” The midget bowed. Or did they want to be called little people?

  Hunter stepped inside, his nose twitching as an unfamiliar fragrance wafted by. Looking up, he saw overhead fans spinning in perfect synchronization all the way to the end of the hall, where there was a brightly lit space, so intense that it caused him to squint. He looked down at the doorman whose hand was outstretched. Handing the card over, he watched as the midget/little person tucked it inside his formal jacket. The door closed of its own accord. Draft, maybe? The little man turned his back and walked in a rolling gait towards the hall. Hunter remained planted, deciding whether he wanted to leave or stay.

  “If you would,” the doorman urged. His stubby arm swept out dramatically toward the lit area ahead.

  So Hunter walked
, very slowly, behind the doorman. With each step the scent became more powerful; heady, almost. It was intoxicating and delicious. He could almost taste it on his tongue. Almost there now, just a few more steps and he would be able see inside the brightly lit room ahead. He stopped for a moment and just enjoyed the fragrance. With each breath he felt calmer. The doorman smiled up at him. His teeth were surprisingly sharp.

  “Mathers,” a voice called.

  The little man turned and walked into the light. Hunter was fascinated for a moment with the dividing line between light and dark. It was a very distinct line in the hallway. He stepped over it and into the light, and thought it felt slightly funny. I’m going towards the bright light.

  When his eyes adjusted, he realized he’d been looking down, because the first thing he saw was two impeccably shod feet. He quickly looked up to see a regal man standing in front of him. He was probably a few inches shorter than Hunter. The most intriguing part of the man’s appearance was his hair. Swept back neatly over his shoulders, it cascaded down to his waist in a silken shower of white. The man dipped his head a mere inch as a greeting.

  “Detective Hunter, I am pleased you accepted our invitation.”

  Clearly a handshake was not going to happen. A shame because you could tell a lot about a person by the way they shook hands. Hunter wanted to look around the room, or rather the monumental sized solarium.

  “Please, take your time. I forget how overpowering it can be. I will be over there when you are ready.” The man’s voice had a musical cadence to it.

  Hunter looked where the man pointed and saw a table with chairs set up. He now knew the fragrance came from orchids and gardenias planted all along the garden paths. His mother had loved both. A massive banyan tree dominated the center of the space with its labyrinth of roots below. He followed the trunk of the tree all the way to the top, till he could see the opening to the sky above. The description which popped into his head, over and over again, was timeless. This place felt like it had always been here, waiting for him to walk in.

  Hunter felt crude and clumsy as he went over to the elegant man.

  “How very rude of me, my name is Huthwiat.” The man pronounced it Huth-write. In one fluid motion he sat, and motioned to the chair opposite him.

  Again, feeling clumsy, Hunter plopped down in the seat, the automatic cutting into his back.

  “It isn’t necessary for such armament here,” Huthwiat said.

  Deciding to not to ask the obvious question, such as how he knew about the weapon under his jacket, Hunter directed the conversation elsewhere. “I could have killed your man last night.”

  Huthwiat’s face held nothing but kindness. “Not likely. He meant only to protect you, and bring you here to safety.”

  “What exactly do I need protection from?”

  “That is what we hope to discern with your help.”

  “I thought you were the provider of answers.” Hunter’s voice held impatience, and if he were being honest with himself, fear.

  “I am.” The man looked off in the distance for a moment, then turned back to him and smiled. “I’m not used to communicating with your kind. Should I start from the beginning?”

  My kind, Hunter thought. This man was so foreign to him that it could almost mean anything. Did he mean detective, heterosexual, Homo sapiens, what?

  Hunter had never once felt that there was anything supernatural in this world. He was a pragmatist through and through, but as he looked into Huthwiat’s eyes he knew that there was more, much more to his world now.

  Mathers appeared from nowhere pushing a rolling cart, which was taller than him. Upon it was the usual silver tea service.

  “I believe it is precisely as your mother made it.” Huthwiat smiled. “What an interesting man you are, Detective Hunter. You were born in the United States, but have lived most your adult life here, and seem to effortlessly straddle the new and the old worlds.”

  Hunter was only half listening. “How did you know?” He stared at the blackberry cobbler.

  “We know many things.” Huthwiat poured tea and dipped out a perfect portion of cobbler onto a thin china plate. “You are a man of integrity. A man who understands life’s hard truths. Who does not deny what he knows to be the truth of things. We have need of such a man. Avail yourself of some comfort, for this story may take time to unveil.”

  The cobbler called to him. He had to taste it to be sure it was real. If his long dead mother, or a unicorn, appeared before him, he would not have been surprised in the least. All he could muster was a nod to Huthwiat as he sat back in his chair and waited for the strange but elegant man to start his story.

  “We have much in common. We both try to keep balance in a chaotic world. You protect the law abiding citizen against the criminal who would do them harm,” Huthwiat said, placing his hand against his blue tie, “while I balance our kind as we strive to live in peace, inside what has become your world.”

  Hunter opened his mouth to speak, but Huthwiat raised his hand. “If you would wait until I’m finished, then you shall have all the time you need.

  “You see, we have always been here, in this world. You are sitting in an ancient place, far older than your history remembers. Below our very feet are the ancient caves which house the many scripts and texts that your world has forgotten through the ages. You have heard of the great library of Alexandria?”

  Hunter moved his hand from side-to-side. He knew it was a library lost to a fire, but that was all.

  Huthwiat smiled at him. “What’s important to know is that a great many things were lost because of one small flame. A few texts and artifacts were rescued, but so much of our history, the history before your kind embraced the one God, was left to drift on the wind as ash.”

  Huthwiat retreated into himself for a moment. Hunter could tell he was remembering. Huthwiat’s gaze sharpened suddenly as he looked at Hunter, and Hunter felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen. “Maybe it’s better for humanity to not know?” Huthwiat shrugged.

  Hunter could not contain himself. “You’ve lost me. Not know what, exactly?” He raised his eyebrows not in disbelief so much as frustration.

  “You must be patient with me. It has been so very long since I’ve brought a new member in. You are most unique, most prized, a new fledgling mind amongst us old fossils. I’ve foreseen great things for you. What I’m so artlessly trying to describe is our–” He hesitated again and stared off. Hunter knew he was searching for the right words. “Our mission statement, our purpose of being, if you will.”

  Somehow, Huthwiat was now standing to his right, but Hunter had not seen him move from his chair. His hands were held out, his palms up, in a gesture which looked uncannily like Jesus’ portrayal.

  “We are a race which came before humans. We’ve watched over your kind with curiosity throughout the ages. In time, pettiness became our downfall. We are called the Others, a diverse group of beings that are not human.”

  Hunter’s nature was to fight his fear with anger and humor. “Really, so what are you, a spacemen? Is that what Stonehenge is, an astral landing strip?”

  “We know of no spacemen, though it would be preposterous to believe we are the only creation in the heavens. As for Stonehenge, well, maybe we could discuss that later.”

  The elegant man floated a few inches from the floor. In an instant, he had Hunter’s gun in his hand and placed it on the table. “We need you, as you need us.”

  Hunter jumped up and quickly moved backwards, knocking over his chair and dropping his plate, to get away from Huthwiat. “How did you do that?”

  “I did not mean to alarm you.”

  Hunter felt the gun back inside the holster again and reached his hand around to secure the strap back in place. Adrenaline barreled through his system, heightening all his senses. “If you are what you say, then how could I possibly help you?”

  “Our keepers are being hunted and killed. You saw with your own eyes two of them at the c
hurch. The Head Keeper is missing, presumed kidnapped, or worse. Our world has changed, yet we have not. I fear there will be a time when…” Huthwiat became very still, gazing in the direction of the banyan tree. The silence was uncomfortable, and when he gave Hunter his full attention again, Huthwiat's eyes were less bright.

  “It was you who covered it up?” Somehow all the dominoes were falling into place, creating a perfect, yet insane, pattern.

  The man nodded as Hunter glared at him. It was then that he realized Huthwiat’s eyes were the exact shade of blue as the ink on the note.

  “It is true. In order to retain the veil of separation between our kinds, we alter events, and when necessary manipulate the minds of humans.”

  “It was you who sent the agent. Why?”

  “He was a mere tool, sent to transport the keepers’ remains to their rightful resting place. He has now finished his task and no longer remembers being there, or you.”

  Tool was right, Captain Fucking America, Hunter thought.

  “So you want me to work for you? To find out who or what is doing this, and then what, a supernatural frontal lobotomy?”

  Huthwiat smiled. It was unnerving to realize that nothing Hunter could say or do would threaten this man. That he was beyond, or above, those emotions.

  “I had no idea how refreshing you would be,” Huthwiat said. “It is my wish that you join our world. Of course, it is your choice. If you decide to help us then a new life will open up before you. A life that you could have never imagined existed. If you choose not to proceed further, then so be it. You will be as before but with no memory of this.”

  “What if I can’t hack it after a time? What if I want out in the future? What happens then?”

  “I feel your fear, but no harm shall ever come to you from my hands. You would simply remember a different life that does not contain us, or this, or what you will learn. There is no trap here. As I’ve tried to explain, we need you.”