Dark & Disorderly

by Bernita Harris

  The sirens in the night. I said, carefully, “Where was this? You said ‘the worst section.’”

  “Yeah, other side of Deadman’s Point where the highway divides into four lanes, just beyond the big rock-cut.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. “I’m sorry, Lillie. I forgot for a minute. That was right near where your husband went off and smashed up, wasn’t it?”

  His hand wavered over mine for a moment and then drew back. He remembered. You don’t touch another Talent except by invitation.

  “Any word yet on what caused his accident? I’ve wondered about the specter effect, you know. They can scare the bejesus out of a driver the way some of them materialize, practically on your hood.”

  I shook my head. “No, they sent the wreck for mechanical testing, they tell me. He’d had it serviced that day and maybe they think a mechanic’s error might be responsible. It’s a better explanation than the suicide story that’s been making the rounds, I must say. Ric, if you ever encounter his ghost there, you’ll let me know, won’t you? Let me handle it?”

  I didn’t know where Nathan’s ghost wandered. It might well be there. I didn’t know if I could exorcize Nathan if he did haunt that site. Theorists claimed that responsibility for a death nullified an exorcist’s power over that particular and subsequent spirit. That the laws of power prevented a killer exorcist from destroying evidence that the victim’s ghost might provide. One of these days I’d be forced to test that theory.

  Ric nodded, his doggy eyes sympathetic and rather relieved.

  For a moment I debated whether to mention my encounter last night, but decided not to. “Did anything else weird happen last night?”

  “No, not really. Some sonofabitch disregarded the pylons and came roaring up behind us, without lights, if you can believe it, except for a spot or something on his roof. Came out of nowhere. Jesus, the way some people drive. He hit the brakes so hard, I swear I saw flames shoot from all four tires. Seriously. Bastard didn’t stop though, swerved around us and kept on going and I didn’t make the plate.”

  Cold feathered across my forehead. From what he described, there wouldn’t be a license plate. I could be looking at a dead man. “What color?”

  “Color? Oh, black. A black SUV.”

  There was no other way but blunt. Besides, I was too tired to be anything else. “Did the driver shout at you? Did you hear your name?”

  “Name? Not with the demolition derby beginning in the westbound and all the Godforsaken and the psychics moaning and screeching…I couldn’t hear myself think, but I called a few names, believe me!”

  My question registered. His face went blank as he reached back in memory to single out details he had overlooked in the excitement. He put his coffee cup down carefully and slumped back in his chair.

  “You think it might have been a Black Coach forewarning and not a crazy driver? That I saw a…” He fumbled over the pronunciation. I supplied it.

  “A dullahan, yes. A Crom Dubh. The Headless One, they call him sometimes. Ric, it fits with your description. A lot of Irish settled here about 150 years ago. Maybe jigs, wakes and whiskey weren’t the only thing they brought with them. Thank God you didn’t hear him call your name.”

  I reminded him it was useful to know the ethnic history of a given area. It gave one a few clues to what one might expect in the way of paranatural forms. Irish and Scots were the major settlers in this area, a few English, a few French. Later immigration seemed not to affect the matrix as much.

  “Yeah, I get that, Lillie, but an SUV…” he said, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

  “They upgraded from fire-breathing horses and black coaches a long time ago, Ric. If I were a dullahan, I’d have opted for a black motorcycle myself. Be glad they aren’t using black helicopters.”

  I checked the clock above the door, swallowed the rest of my coffee and shrugged into my coat. Time to get going. “According to legend, the Dark Men abhor gold—or adore it—I’ve never decided which is more likely. If that’s any help.”

  “Gold?” He rolled a wedding ring below a bony, freckled knuckle.

  I fingered my own narrow band automatically, pushing it back in place. I’d lost weight in the last few months and my fingers were thinner. Probably the ring belonged in a drawer now but a wedding band also provided protection from problems of a different and human kind. I wondered if Ric’s wife was more comfortable with his Talent than Nathan had been with mine. Probably not. Brown waves brushed the collar of his black trench coat. He’d taken to dyeing his hair to hide the silver. I’d thought about doing the same. Another of the petty things Nathan and I fought over.

  “You’d never get it off in time. I’d suggest you find some scrap gold, like an old shirt stud, or buy a gold chain and chop it into short chunks and keep them handy. Apparently, just a small bit will do for a bribe.”

  I tugged a set of links loose from inside my sleeve and tossed it on the table. “Here. Keep this for now. The trick is to throw it down in front of them if you spot a Dark Man coming your way.”

  I smoothed on my gloves and tried to remember the rest of the safety instructions.

  “And another thing. Be careful about answering your door at home. You could lose an eye. According to legend, soul collectors like the dullahan resent an audience and will try to blind a watcher. You did see him even if his target was the crash casualty. Though I have to say, if a dullahan tools down a public highway I don’t see how he can expect to avoid being seen. This stuff’s all in your manual, by the way. They cite reports from Montreal and Boston, as well as the usual number from where the mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea.”

  “Where the what?”

  “Ireland. It’s a song. Never mind. Look in the appendix section. You’ll find more information under ‘Dangerous Encounters and Hazardous Entities.’”

  Ric had a fair Talent from what little I’d seen, but he was timid in the use of it and lazy as well. Maybe his Talent would grow with experience. Sometimes I thought he showed a lack of curiosity and little initiative, a complacency. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe not. Our occupation wasn’t so safe we could operate by habit and rote.

  “There’s more in the supplements and safety posters they send out every month,” I added.

  “Been too busy to read them. You think gold will work, Lillie?” His jaw twitched in a half shudder.

  I sighed and spread my hands. Another time I might have been able to squeeze out a little more energy for discussion, comfort, consolation. Not today. Besides, the smell of asafoetida was getting to me.

  “Look, Ric, we’re operating here basically by trial and error, as much by legend as by luck. For all I know gold as an avaunt rose out of some cover-up for losing Grandma’s gold locket, or to hide a gambling loss, or coin spent on loose women, and may be pure bullshit and no use at all… Come to think of it, a dullahan attack on a watcher resembles an old-fashioned, Mafia-type knee-busting.”

  I shouldn’t have put it that way. Ric swallowed convulsively. Tough. He had to be warned.

  “Maybe it’s just paranoia about the dullahan, but I don’t think so. Even in this quiet little corner of the world, we’re hearing of more and more stuff besides just ghosts, and we have to be prepared. It’s just a matter of time.”

  I hoped not. I didn’t like the idea of leprechauns. Malignant, degraded little beasts, mostly—efforts of tourist boards to turn them into happy, winking little wise guys notwithstanding.

  I shouldn’t have said that, but I kept talking. “Creatures like him have been reported other places. For all we know leprechauns will show up at AA meetings or lurk in the banks.” I shouldn’t have said that either. Ric looked at me walleyed. I figured he’d be doing his banking online from now on.

  “Ah, relax! They claim the little suckers avoid people, and … Look, Ric, the best thing you can do right now is go home and go to bed. Wish I could.”

  A dullahan. A more active entity th
an mere ghosts. Some people claimed dimensions colliding caused The Great Ghost Proliferation—or The Awakening, a term the spiritualists preferred. I wondered, sometimes, if the reality reflected dimensions re-integrating instead. Even after three decades, none of the theories so earnestly expounded adequately explained either the pervasiveness or the proliferation of specters and spirits—and sometimes uglier things out of myth and legend—intruding into our daily lives.

  Certain scientists favored a spoors-from-outer-space hypothesis, which they termed the Ethereal Manifestation Effect. They pointed to the asteroid that swung through the earth’s atmosphere a few years before I was born. Allegedly, the asteroid brought with it some gaseous catalyst or some unknown and alien radiation, which continued to alter patterns of molecular energy into sporadic visibility. This theory argued that spirits of the dead had been cohabiting with mankind all along, but it satisfied only the crop circle crew and frightened everybody.

  Nathan, for one, had preferred another explanation: environmental resonance. Something he called electro-ferrous magnetism, caused by pollution and increased solar radiation, heavy metals and mercury. And nuke plants. Nathan had been very down on nuclear facilities. He considered them one of the primary causes of our present state of spirit contamination, as he called it. And, as I was to discover, the phenomenon behind mutant Freaks like me…

  On the other hand, social philosophers maintained that ghosts and other paranormalities were poltergeists of our own creation, formed of our own fears, projections of our own psyches, activated remnants of our collective unconscious. An inevitable symptom of profound social malaise. We had simply succeeded en masse in haunting ourselves.

  “It’s getting worse, isn’t it, Lillie?”

  “Are you sorry you gave up driving snowplows? Yes, Ric. I think so. But what the hell? It’s a job. And we’re the only ones who can do it in safety, more or less.” I tucked my envelope under my arm and headed for the door.

  “Don’t forget to send a report about your Black Bart to the national database,” I said over my shoulder.

  The coffee shop door opened outward just as I shouldered against it. Off balance, I lurched forward. My nose skidded on a man’s silky tie and buried itself in a white shirt.

  “Oh, shit,” I said with my usual aplomb. “Sorry.”

  I jerked back and slipped on the newly wet-mopped floor. A pair of hands clamped on my arms to steady me. Very large hands.

  “My fault. Are you all right?” It had a voice deep as a well. It was tall and broad. Beyond an aura that struck like a solar flare and a bolt of energy that arced between us, nothing else registered.

  “No,” I said, truthfully, “I’m not.” I took my awkward ass out of there. Whoever the guy was, he gave off a powerful charge. It was like being zapped by a Taser on full charge. Even more shocking was my momentary, insane and totally ridiculous desire to just rest there, against a stranger’s broad chest, and soak up that golden energy. Weird and not good. In fact, stupid might be the best word. Maybe I was so tired my mental shields were weak. That was not a good thing either. I needed to be in firm control of both face and feelings today.

  After reporting my dead phone line to the telephone company, I stopped by the jeweler’s and bought another gold chain with large links, since I’d given Ric the piece I had with me. If a dullahan was indeed tooling around town, I wanted to be prepared.

  After rubbing his bald head several times and making sucking sounds signifying disapproval, the jeweler obligingly deigned to separate the chain into one-inch sections at my request. While I waited I noticed a discreet sign indicating he bought scrap gold at so much a gram. Something to consider when I got around to cleaning out Nathan’s jewelry. Melted down in some distant crucible, all trace of his touch would be burned away.

  I sat on a bench behind a cement planter near the bank, dug out my emergency sewing kit from my shoulder bag and sewed one length of bling under the collar of my raincoat and one on the braid of my suit jacket. It looked ridiculous, so I sewed five more lengths down the front, making three on each side. Using the bank windows as a mirror, I inspected the result. The links were small enough that it didn’t look like biker meets Chanel. Not quite. It just looked stupid. So I took them all off and tacked one inside the sleeve of my jacket.

  By that time, according to the bank clock, my visit to the station shouldn’t be inconvenient. No sense putting off the necessary, no matter how unpleasant. Besides, passers-by were beginning to stare at me. This bench was reserved for a certain set of old codgers.

  Rhoda Tiller, Chief Bobby’s secretary and sometimes division dispatcher, though she was a civilian like me, was on the desk when I walked into the police station. Forty-something, chunky, with Native-straight black hair and bangs cut short, she managed to exude more cop than some of the cops. Except for the cherry-red lipstick. If I ever dared wear that shade, with my skin, I’d look like the soul-sucking lamia Nathan once accused me of being—or worse.

  I liked Rhoda; she was competent.

  She did not like me.

  4.

  Once, I overheard Rhoda tell Bob that Lillie of the Field was waiting to see him. That was clever of her, really, since I found bodies for them. Often in fields. It was much nicer than comparing me to a cadaver dog. Maybe she distrusted the invisibility of my skill. Maybe she resented the fact I was sometimes called the Dispatcher. Maybe not.

  Whenever I showed up, her lips compressed at one corner and her brown eyes narrowed as if to prevent them from rolling heavenward. This morning I didn’t care.

  “Good morning, Ms. Tiller.” I laid my envelope on the high counter. “Is Chief Secord available?”

  Any cop would do, initially, I suppose, but I met Bobby years ago, my first year in a high school a hundred miles away, when he punched out a guy trying to grope me in the locker corridor. It was the first time anyone ever stood up for me. Because of that incident and other reasons, my guardian removed me from public school and supplied me with tutors, but I’d heard he graduated the next semester and went on to police college. Neither of us mentioned it when I appeared for my contract job with the department. I assumed he’d forgotten the pale, scared, hero-worshipping freshman.

  Bobby was a strong advocate for the inclusion of my minor branch of forensics into the investigative toolbox. He did not have a problem with Talent and made his policy clear to the detachment. And I owed him in more ways than that. Bob had been the one who showed up at my door, drove me to the hospital and held my hand that night two weeks ago.

  Rhoda wheeled her chair around and got slowly to her feet.

  “No, Ms. St. Claire, he is not. The chief’s in hospital. Intensive care. He was attacked last night by a zombie.” Her red-rimmed eyes said what she wouldn’t. Pity it hadn’t been you instead of Bob.

  “A zombie?” My words came out like a whip. “Where? On the River Road?” An accident of the scope Ric mentioned would have needed every available cop.

  “No. Back this way from Willowbank Cemetery—before you come to that subdivision.” She glared at me as if it was my fault. Maybe it was.

  I really would have liked to sit down, but there were no chairs on my side of the counter. I had to visit Willowbank Cemetery after I finished here. To check Nathan’s grave. I braced myself against the counter.

  “When? When was Bob attacked?”

  She ignored me. “We’re very busy this morning, so unless… If these are follow-up reports, I’ll pass them on to the lead constables later.” She reached for my envelope.

  I slapped my hand down on it. “What time? When was Bob attacked?”

  Normally she would have won any staring contest, but not this time.

  Finally, she blinked and looked away, “Around eight. He managed to crawl to his cruiser and call in a short time after.”

  “I had an unexpected encounter with an abnormal specimen last night. Too. I have to see someone. It may be relevant. In fact, I’m sure it is.” Holy crap. Two zombies in t
own would constitute an epidemic.

  I turned and leaned back against the counter, hugging my envelope to my chest and fighting tears. No way I dared visit the hospital. The chances were remote I’d get in to see Bob anyway, but I couldn’t chance it again. Too much electrical stuff.

  Five minutes later, Rhoda, as if she wore latex gloves and I was a particularly nasty piece of evidence, conducted me into one of the smaller offices and introduced me to the man behind the desk, Sergeant John Thresher.

  He didn’t rise, didn’t offer to shake hands. I got a nod, one narrowed laser glance and an upraised finger that first pointed to a chair in front of the desk. He went back to the phone, tucked between his chin and shoulder.

  This black-haired man was the same megalith I’d bounced off at the coffee shop. A solid, dark blue ring contained and controlled his aura now, as tight as I’d ever seen outside another Talent. It matched his eyes. A faint coral lipstick stain marked the front of his shirt where I’d butted him. A trace of sugar marked the corner of his mouth. A very nice mouth, on a face like a box of hammers and jaws like angle irons. Not that he was ugly, exactly, just…rugged…and as impassive and unrelenting as a granite outcrop. I was permanently inoculated against pretty boys, however, so I liked his face. The man might be another matter.

  Rhoda added several files to the pile in front of him and took away an empty donut box. Obviously, she approved of him. White shirt, tasteful tie, fine pinstripe suit jacket. Maybe he hadn’t had time for breakfast. His body language said he was used to desks and used to staff and very used to being in charge. Very federal.

  Rhoda’s introduction slowly filtered through my distracted mind, that Thresher was some sort of regional or federal psi-crime expert called in because of the attack on Bob, not Bob’s replacement. His presence made sense. Nothing and nobody takes down a cop without determined and massive retribution.