by N. P. Martin
“Because she fucking despises you, Martin,” I said bluntly. “She thinks you’re a degenerate who should never have been born. We all think that, in fact. But I still think you can be a useful degenerate.”
“Useful? How?”
“You move in certain circles,” I said. “And you deal with certain people. You have access, Martin, access that might be useful to me for what I’m trying to do.”
“What you’re trying to do?” he said, still looking shell-shocked, and I didn’t blame him. His own mother had hung him out to dry, and the man he tried to have killed was now dictating terms to him.
“I’m not going to explain it now, but believe me when I say that there’s a lot at stake.”
“This isn’t fair…this isn’t—”
I slapped him hard around the face. “Fair has nothing to do with it, Martin. If you wanted fair, you shouldn’t have become who you are, should you?”
He shook his head slowly as tears ran down his face. “No…”
“This is your new reality now, Martin, and the sooner you accept it, the better.” I stood up straight and looked at Mac. “Hold him down.”
“What?” Phillips said in a panic. “You said you weren’t going to kill me!”
“I’m not,” I said as Mac pressed Phillips’ face down on the ground and held him there. Once Phillips was secure, I lifted his shirt to expose his over-tanned back, drawing a concerned look from Mac that I ignored.
“What are you going to do?” Phillips wailed. “Stop! Please!”
“This is just my security,” I said as I started to carve a sigil into his back. “This is how I’ll know where you are at all times, so you can’t ever hide from me, Martin.”
Phillips screamed and didn’t stop screaming until I had finished carving the sigil, and even then, he still wailed like a child. “I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you!”
“No, you won’t,” I said calmly as Mac let him up, still seeming uncomfortable with what I’d just done to Phillips. “You’re under my control now, Martin. From now on, you’ll do whatever I tell you to do. If you don’t, or if you try to fuck me, I’ll send Mac here after you, and he’ll tear you to shreds. Show him, Mac.”
Mac quickly grabbed Phillips and shoved him against the side of the SUV. In seconds, Mac’s face had transformed, his massive jaws right next to Phillips’ terrified face as he snarled and then barked once, causing Phillips to wet himself, the stain spreading down his red tracksuit. “Please stop…” he whimpered.
“Fuck with me,” I said, “and Mac will tear your throat out. And remember, I can always find you thanks to that sigil on your back. If you try to erase the sigil, I’ll know, and Mac will come looking for you. And believe me, there’s nowhere you can hide from him, Martin. He can sniff you out anywhere.”
Phillips slid down the side of the SUV and sat on the ground weeping. If I didn’t know the guy and what he had done, I would’ve almost felt sorry for the bastard. But I didn’t. Not one bit.
“You’re getting off lightly here, Martin,” I told him. “Considering all you’ve done, and the hurt you’ve caused to others. Now you get to go back to doing whatever you were doing before. But just remember, when I call, you answer. When I tell you to do something, you fucking do it, no questions asked. Are we clear, Martin?”
Phillips nodded, a broken man. “Yes,” he said in a quiet voice. “We’re clear.”
“Good,” I said. “Let’s go, guys.”
28
A week after my little talk with Phillips, I moved into an apartment in North Elmview, a slightly better neighborhood than Bricktown. Dent evicted me from the old apartment after what happened there. I was also arrested over the incident, having to explain to the cops why there were four dead men outside my old apartment. Murtagh knew what went down, of course, and he did his best to smooth things over. His captain, however, wanted me charged with multiple homicides. In the end, I had to contact my father, who sent his lawyer to the precinct to represent me. Within an hour of the lawyer turning up, I was released by the cops pending further investigation. The lawyer argued self defense, and the fact that Zee had killed the men, not me. And as Zee wasn’t around to be questioned, the case fell flat.
After being released from the police station, I went to the apartment in Bricktown and gathered up all my stuff, having to kick the door in because Dent had installed a new one. Dent, of course, came running when he heard I was back. At first he tried to argue that everything in the apartment now belonged to him, which was obviously bullshit. He then threatened to get his two goons to come sort me out, at which point I pulled a gun on him, pointing it at his head, telling him I would shoot him if he didn’t go away and let me get my stuff. He nearly shit himself, and backed off, threatening to call the cops, and I said if he did, he would end up like the four dead guys who had previously bloodied up his hallway. He left me alone after that.
Once I had packed up everything in my office, I went around collecting the stuff that Zee had gathered up over the years—the paintings, the jewelry, the little antiques, the expensive first editions. It nearly killed me to even touch the stuff, since it all reminded me so much of Zee. Or more specifically, her absence. More than once I broke down before I had collected it all. Once I had, I took it all to a guy I knew and fenced the lot. And even though I only got less than half of what the stuff was worth, I still ended up with a tidy sum.
With the money I now had, I used some of it to pay a full year’s rent up front on the new apartment so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I also used some to furnish the new place. The rest I stashed away to use as living expenses, which from now on would probably amount to mostly whiskey and cigarettes.
The first night in the apartment was pretty awful. I’d never felt so alone. For the last seven years, Zee had been my constant companion, always there to comfort me, to love me, to make me laugh, even when she was annoying me with some of the crazy shit she got up to. That first night was spent drinking whisky and coming to terms with my new reality.
A reality without Zee in it.
A reality I intended to change as soon as I could.
I just wasn’t sure how yet.
The morning after my first night in the new apartment, I went out with a hangover and bought some flowers to take to Cave Hill Cemetery, where my mother was buried in a very expensive grave that had a massive statue of an angel standing over it.
“Hello, Mom,” I said as I laid the flowers I had brought down on the grave. “Sorry I haven’t visited for a while. Things have just been…crazy. I’m not even going to tell you everything that’s happened, except maybe that we’re getting closer to finding out what happened to Ava. I’m not even sure I want to know, Mom, but…I have to find out. For Ava. I’ve also got myself into a situation that I’m not even sure I can resolve, at least not without some dire consequences. But what’s new, right?” I laughed slightly. “I miss you, Mom. I really wish you were here to advise me. You always had good advice. Father is doing okay. We’re…getting along, I guess. For the moment, anyway. We’ll see how long that lasts. Anyway, I love you, Mom.”
As I went to walk away from the grave, I had a thought that prompted me to take some flowers from my mother’s grave and go walking around the cemetery for the next half an hour while I looked for the newer graves, eventually finding the one I was searching for.
Angela Smith’s.
“You don’t know me,” I said as I put the flowers next to the grave. “I used to live downstairs from you. I was the one who discovered your body. I’m sorry about what happened to you. The guy who, eh, killed you, he’s dead now. I just thought you should know. Maybe, I don’t know, it will bring you peace or something.” I paused as I stared at the gravestone. “There was another guy involved as well. He’s still out there, but he’ll get what’s coming to him as well. It just might take a little while. Anyway…rest in peace, Angela.”
Turning away from the grave, I stopped when I saw someone standing at the far side
of the cemetery. The person was wearing dark clothing, and a hood covered their head. The second I saw the stranger, I instantly thought of the man my father had talked about, the one present at the scene of the disappearances.
Without thinking, I started towards the stranger, calling out, “Hey! Hey you!”
Anger rose in me with every step, and all I wanted to do was grab the hooded stranger and shake him until he told me where my sister was.
When I called out again, the stranger turned away and began to dash between the graves as if trying to get away from me.
That’s when I started running.
And so did the stranger.
Soon, I was chasing after the guy as he ran toward the main gates. But thanks to my anger energizing me, I caught up with the guy, and I jumped him from behind, tackling him to the ground.
“Who are you?!” I screamed at him as I grabbed him by the lapels and shook him. “Tell me who you are?! Tell what you did to my sister?!”
“Mister, wait!” the guy cried out. “Stop! Please!”
I stopped shaking the guy as his hood fell from his head to reveal the face of someone barely in their twenties. A fucking kid. Staring down at the terrified kid, I soon realized I had made a terrible mistake. “I...I’m sorry,” I said as I got off him.
“You’re fucking crazy, man!” the kid said. “Why’d you jump me, huh? I was just visiting my mom’s grave!”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought you were someone else.”
The kid shook his head in disgust. “Fuck you, man!” he said before running off.
Christ, I thought as I stood shaking my head. The kid’s right. I am fucking crazy.
And the worst thing, I realized with utter certainty, was that I was only set to get crazier as things around me got more so.
29
When I got back to my apartment, there was a package sitting outside my front door. Walking down the hallway, I frowned as I saw the large box sitting there, wondering what it could be as I hadn’t ordered anything, a fact which soon sent alarm bells ringing in me. Stopping by the box, I stared down at for a moment, and then looked up and down the long hallway, as though the person who had dropped the box off was still around, but they weren’t. Not that I could see, anyway.
I could see it was a plain cardboard box, crumpled in places, and not even sealed at the top, the flaps sitting slightly proud from the edges.
Puffing my cheeks out, I let out a long sigh and then bent down and picked the box up, testing the weight a little. Whatever was inside, it was heavy. I was about to open it when I saw a man and woman enter the hallway from the landing and come walking toward me. Neighbors probably, I thought as I picked up the box and smiled at the couple as they walked past, who smiled back and said hello before they entered an apartment down the hall.
Entering my own apartment, I walked straight into the living room and placed the cardboard box on the coffee table, afraid to even open the damn thing at this point because my mind had thrown up all sorts of bad ideas as to what might be inside.
Standing over the box, I lit a cigarette and stared down at it some more before finally sighing and lifting the top flaps, letting them fall to the side before opening the inner flaps.
When I had the box open, I gasped in horror at what was inside and staggered back almost in fright, as if what was in the box was going to jump out at me at any second.
But what was inside the box would not be jumping out at me, for inside the box was a severed head, nestled in a bunch of bloodstained straw.
“Fuck!” I shouted, creeped out by the ghastly package, but also pissed off that some sick fuck would even send me something like that.
Despite my disgust and accompanying anxiety, I approached the box again to get a better look at the head inside. It was the head of a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties, with long light-colored hair, the flesh on the woman’s face now gray, almost greenish in places as if she had been dead for a while.
It was because of this discoloration that I didn’t notice what was on her forehead at first. But when I noticed, I staggered back away from the box and had to sit down on the sofa before my legs gave out by themselves.
On the woman’s head was a tattoo. The insignia of the Ord an Dúnmharú Amháin.
It didn’t take me long to realize what the delivery of the head was about.
It was a warning.
The ODA were letting me know they knew I was looking into them.
They must’ve heard about the mass grave being found in the Great Woods, I thought.
But why send me the warning? Why not my father? Or maybe they had sent him one as well.
Either way, it didn’t matter.
The Order knew we were on to them now.
“Fuck,” I said as I went to the window and looked down at the street below, only to see a hooded figure standing on the corner, shadowy face staring up at me. “Jesus Christ…”
The figure continued staring for another moment before walking around the corner and disappearing.
For a second, I considered running down there and going after the stranger, but I knew I would never find them.
Before long, they would find me, and when they did, someone was going to die.
It only remained to be seen whether that someone was me.
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"I love you, Daddy…"
I awoke to the sound of my dead daughter’s voice echoing in my head, a remnant of the dream—or rather nightmare—I’d been having. Bathed in cold sweat, I sat up on the sofa and groaned at the tightness in my skull before staring into the empty living room, half expecting to see her there, my angel, smiling at me.
Callie…
God, her voice sounded so real…but it wasn’t. She was gone and there was no bringing her back. Not even her ghost remained. Closing my eyes, I waited in vain for the pain to pass, even though I knew it wouldn’t. Only the Mud could dull things enough for me to function, and that was locked up in the bedroom, which meant I would have to get up and get it, but only after I’d had a cigarette. The TV was on and Apocalypse Now was still showing. I barely remembered putting the movie on before falling asleep, which meant I hadn’t slept for very long. Willard was on his way to kill Kurtz in the final scene. As I stared at the screen, smoking my first cigarette of the day—the first draw like sandpaper against my throat—my phone rang on the table beside me, next to an empty bottle of whiskey and my badge and gun. Picking
up the phone, I saw it was Hannah Walker calling. Or rather, the celestial being who now occupied Hannah’s body, who I still didn’t fully trust and probably never would. "Yeah?" I answered, my throat hoarse as I took another drag.
"Ethan. Are you awake?" Walker asked.
"What do you think?"
"There’s been another disturbance at Cave Hill Cemetery. More serious this time."
"More serious than the dead dog we took away yesterday?" Walker used to work Vice, until she overdosed on a speedball and died. That’s when the demon took over her body, only no one else knows that but me. We became partners a few weeks ago, after the police commissioner reassigned me to the station sub-basement to handle the "special cases". It takes one to know one, I suppose.
"A grave was dug up."
"Whose grave?"
Walker paused before answering. "Barbara Keane’s."
"Shit, seriously?"
"The press is already all over it. The ones called Stokes and Routman are on the scene now."
"What’d I tell you about talking like that? You wanna blend in here or not?"
"Yes, sorry. I mean Stokes and Routman."
"Better,” I said. “Isn’t their shift over? What’s this have to do with Homicide anyway?"
"Nothing, but they were near the cemetery when the call came in."
"Is the body still there or was it taken?"
"It was taken,” she said. “You think the two incidents are linked?"
"It would be a hell of a coincidence if they weren’t,” I said, taking a drag on my cigarette.
"There must be some occult connection. Why steal a body, especially one as infamous as Barbara Keane’s?"
"Because some fuckwit probably thinks it has special properties.” I stubbed out my cigarette in a glass ashtray that was overflowing with stale butts. “Or maybe they just want to have sex with her corpse."