Bad Seed

by Gareth Vaughn

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Painkiller,” said Dane.

  “Also a blood thinner.”

  “Hasn’t killed me yet.”

  Dane expected him to argue further, maybe, or push the drink away, but to his surprise, Sean picked it up and downed the entire glass—a generous three shots of bourbon—before smacking it back down on the counter and groaning. So he wasn’t the worst possible person to have gotten himself involved in all this shit. He could at least take a drink. Dane leaned forward on the counter toward him.

  “Another?” When Sean shook his head, he scowled. “What do you want to know?”

  Sean started laughing, spread his hands, then winced.

  “Everything,” he said. “The fuck is going on around here? I’ve seen some things—”

  “You’ve barely seen anything,” said Dane, unscrewing the bottle again. Sean was watching him suspiciously so he pulled the empty glass over and poured himself about half as much as the professor already had. This was not Dane’s preferred way to drink.

  “Great, that’s an excellent explanation. You going to drink out of that?”

  “What? It just had bourbon.”

  “But I…” Sean trailed off, shook his head.

  “I kissed you,” said Dane, grinning as he saw how it made Sean squirm. “Think I care you used this glass?”

  “You’re right. This entire place is so filthy you have bigger diseases to worry about.”

  “Low blow, professor,” said Dane. He was going through the bourbon too fast. He set it back down.

  “There’s mold growing in the bathroom!”

  “The place was cheap. Not like I’m here much.”

  “Because you’re off executing ghosts?” Sean looked like he was still struggling to process this. Damn, he was slow. After he’d been attempting to research werewolves ages ago on Friday night? “Ghosts are a thing now?”

  “Ghosts were always a thing. Must suck to realize you missed out on all the excitement.”

  “Why?”

  Sean looked truly distressed by this. Dane finished the contents of the glass and set it aside.

  “Not everybody stays dead, professor. Some people don’t like passing on. You see, Bleu Falls has these nexus points, kind of concentrated magical energy wells, more than most places, gets the ghouls really active.”

  “You don’t have to lecture me,” said Sean.

  Dane grinned. “Thought that was a language you spoke. What kind of professor are you, anyway?”

  Sean looked away. “Greek mythology,” he muttered. “You know, can I get another?”

  “What, after I drank from it?” asked Dane, but he was already pouring. Sean knocked this one back faster than the first. Dane approved. “There might be hope for you yet.”

  “Shut up and keep talking,” said Sean. He shoved the glass away as though to keep himself from drinking more and leaned heavily on the counter. He looked tired, but then he’d had the hell beaten out of him. By a few trees. If they stayed talking after this, Dane would never let him live it down. “And stop smirking.”

  “That’s going to be difficult. Never seen anyone have their ass handed to them by a couple of pine trees before.”

  “Three. There were three.”

  “What?” asked Dane, and Sean looked up at him.

  “Oh, you’re using that dialectically.”

  Dane glared at him.

  “You’re disgusting.” He went ahead and had another drink from the bottle.

  “Me?” asked Sean, nearly laughing. “None of my roommates are cockroaches.”

  “You should shut it before I decide to kiss you again.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. Dane shoved the bottle away, wondering at that. Maybe he was only embarrassed in public. Maybe he’d actually liked being kissed. Dane would deal with whatever that meant later. If it got to be a problem. Like he handled everything else.

  “Good. You met Ned, he’s my kind-of assistant. Gives me heads-up on what’s going on in the graveyard.”

  “Cemetery.”

  “Just fucking be quiet, professor.” Dane took a step away from the bottle, thinking he probably shouldn’t have so much he’d be noticeably affected when he went back to Crypt Coffee. “That thing you ran into? Whatever’s leftover from Eliza Bartley, very deceased. That’s why you get cremated. Remember that.”

  Sean nodded, but he didn’t interrupt.

  “Sometimes the bastards come back, obviously. This one had already passed on and came back—that makes them more dangerous. Don’t ask me how it works, I just handle the disposal. You got your various ways of doing it, your spelled blades and your plain old spells, charged crystal shit, etcetera. I like to use silver—clean work, you can put it on just about anything. It disrupts something with the magic or their power or whatever.”

  “I’m not asking you how it works,” said Sean. He seemed more relaxed now, the bourbon probably working its own kind of magic. “Just hearing any of this shit is real at all is a lot for me at the moment.”

  “I bet it is. So ghosts are real and will fuck you up, magic is real, and you might get a call from someone from the Order at some point to talk to you about all this. Let them in, they’re only going to wipe your mind.”

  “What?” asked Sean.

  Dane grinned at him. “If I report you to them. Unless you think you can keep forever quiet without the help.”

  “Wait, what’s this order?”

  Sean was looking wary, true, but cool enough. Maybe Dane wouldn’t have to ask the Order to clean up yet another one of his messes. Maybe the professor could keep his mouth shut about everything. Would be nice for Dane to have someone he could talk to from time to time. He’d avoided Order meetups back in Minneapolis, but he hadn’t been prepared for just how isolated Bleu Falls was. And the professor was growing on him.

  “What the hell, they’ll get rid of that, too if they’re wiping all the other shit,” said Dane. “The Order of Decrypters is the organization keeping all the sad fuckers like me in line. I’m a Decrypter—I locate cryptids, ghosts, other shit, and eliminate them. They got power, skills, money—they’re the ones who funded Crypt Coffee. You want to keep your memories? Keep low under their radar.”

  “And hope you don’t report me. To some unheard-of organization with the ability to wipe my mind.”

  “You sound skeptical, professor.”

  “This is all beginning to be too much.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Dane, then moved around the counter and offered Sean a hand. “But I’ve got to get back to the coffee shop now. Lots of customers to serve, and I got a few trees to burn later.”

  Sean refused Dane’s hand and dragged himself to his feet on his own, wincing. Dane figured he was sore, even after the bourbon, but he didn’t complain about it.

  “You’re burning them? After you shot them with all those bullets?”

  “Silver-coated bullets work wonders, and yes. Had to burn a bunch of pigeons when they got possessed, too. Remember I mentioned you have to get yourself cremated when you die? Yeah, that helps get rid of things otherwise, too.” Dane paused. “I’ll have to do my best with her bones. Busy night ahead, so if you’re done, I’ll drop you off at your car and you can go back to a nice life, grading papers on how many people Zeus fucked and as what animal.”

  Sean chuckled.

  “What? Didn’t think I went to school? Could be my kink, for all you know.”

  “Please don’t say that,” said Sean as he followed Dane out to his car and they got in.

  “Or you won’t be able to look at homework the same again?”

  “Or I’ll find you more attractive than I already do,” said Sean. “For all you know, it’s my kink, too.”

  “Huh,” said Dane. That was unexpected. Maybe he’d given the poor professor too much bourbon.

  The trip down the road to Crypt Coffee was short and awkward, the silence in his car stiff. Neither of them said anything unt
il he parked and got out.

  “When are we burning those trees?” asked Sean.

  Dane turned to stare at him.

  He laughed, briefly. “Come on, you gave me too much to drive.”

  “Lightweight,” said Dane, and began walking toward the door. “I’m burning the trees. You’re going home and opening up a nice new pack of red pens.”

  Sean moved closer and grabbed his arm. Dane turned, instincts telling him to punch, but resisted the urge. Something else flared through him, originating where Sean’s hand rested, and moved toward his crotch. Shit. Dane hadn’t gotten laid in so long, anything was arousing. He yanked his arm away before things got too noticeable.

  “Might be difficult for you to accept, but I want to burn the hell out of those things. They almost killed me. Count me in. I won’t cause trouble.”

  “You’ve already caused trouble,” said Dane, then rolled his eyes. “Sure. Whatever. Just stay out of my way today, got it?”

  Sean did exactly that. He bought a coffee, a large amount of biscotti, and took his laptop to a corner to wait Dane out. He was half expecting the professor to leave at some point—go home to sleep or eat—but by the time ten o’clock rolled around—Crypt Coffee closed sooner on Sundays—Sean was still there, yawning and scowling.

  “Get your ass up,” said Dane from where he was cleaning one of the many coffee machines. “Going to be burning some trees soon.”

  “Great. Finally.” Sean yawned hugely as he brought his plate and mug over. “How long does it take to burn live trees? I have to be up at four-thirty tomorrow.”

  “You poor bastard.”

  “Yeah, that makes me feel better.” Sean yawned again. “Half my students will probably skip anyway. You know how hard it is to get a full class Monday morning? You’d think they’d try harder with how much they’re paying…”

  “I know you haven’t talked all day, professor, but I don’t see any reason you should start now.”

  “What, you don’t want to know what I found out about Eliza Bartley?” asked Sean, following Dane down to the Lair.

  Dane didn’t much care, but he didn’t try to get Sean to shut up as he grabbed up matches and a flask.

  “She died of suspicious causes. After her death, her son published a couple of novels under a pseudonym, even though he could barely write an article for the newspaper he worked for. Can you connect the dots?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Dane. He led the way to first a can of gasoline and then out into the cemetery. “She’s been dead and passed on, presumably he’s been, too, all we have to do is cleanup.”

  Although Sean seemed disappointed with that, he quieted and helped Dane push the bones up against the trees, douse everything with gasoline, and then light it up. Ned drifted over as they watched the trees burn, Dane noting Sean seemed comfortable enough with him around now.

  “And this sends her back?”

  “As long as she hasn’t left these trees all day,” said Dane. “Ned?”

  “I was called away briefly,” said the ghost.

  Dane pulled out his flask. Fucking flaky-ass ghosts.

  “Disturbance a little way outside of town. Don’t give me that look, Dane. You’ll be interested. There’s been a murder.”

  Chapter 5

  “Who the fuck called you away?” asked Dane, sounding pissed.

  But Sean was more interested in other things. The memory of watching the student have his throat ripped out was too fresh, and he needed to know if this was happening elsewhere. He hated himself for wanting that to be the case, at least a little, so he’d be able to get to the bottom of the situation with Dane’s help.

  “Who was murdered?” he asked, unsurprised when Ned chose to answer his question and not Dane’s.

  “Bethany Becker, age twenty-three. Young, pretty, taken from this world too soon.”

  “You think I care?” asked Dane.

  “Oh, that’s right, you’re into men,” said Ned.

  Sean wondered whether he should take a step away. The heat from the burning pines was getting to be a bit much, anyway.

  “Well, in my professional opinion as a dead person, it’s a shame. Also, it has the reek of magic all over it. Hence my murder suspicions.”

  “They’re just suspicions now? Fuck off, Ned,” said Dane, kicking a bone that had rolled out back into the fire.

  “Don’t fuck off yet, please.”

  “Professor, this is not what we need.” Dane took another drink from his flask.

  “I’m curious,” said Sean.

  “You’re up past your bedtime and you’ve had a hard day.”

  Sean turned away from him. Dane seemed to be more aggression than action, at least when it came to living people. Or Ned. So he turned his back on Dane and focused on the ghost.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  Ned drifted down to lean on a nearby headstone.

  “Not much to say. She had a seizure while driving and hit a tree. I’ve seen a lot of deaths in my time, and my gut says she didn’t die from the crash.”

  “You don’t have a gut,” said Dane.

  Both Ned and Sean ignored him.

  “Seizures don’t normally kill people,” said Sean.

  Ned smirked.

  “Well done. Dane should keep you around more so you can be the one to explain everything to him.”

  Dane grumbled something unintelligible.

  “Occasionally I assist spirits on their way,” said Ned, examining the cuff of his sleeve nonchalantly. “Bethany, for all her death was strange, was mostly ready to pass on. She just needed a little guidance. Some people are bad with directions, so bad they can’t find their way after they’re dead. To use terms you can understand, there are those who ‘see the light,’ so to speak and turn away—myself, for one—and those few who have to be shown where ‘the light,’ is. Bethany was one of those. She’d been wandering around corpse and car for hours, unable to find her way.”

  “Do you have a frickin’ point?” asked Dane.

  “She had magically-tinged products in her car,” said Ned. It was blunt, to the point—and Dane nodded satisfactorily at hearing it.

  “Wait,” said Sean, frowning. “You noticed a suspicious death and didn’t ask the ghost of the potential victim about it?”

  “Yeah, Ned’s a professional,” said Dane, sarcasm dripping from every word.

  “I had more important things on my mind.”

  “Such as getting rid of her before I could interrogate her?”

  “Mostly that, yes.” Ned drifted up again, well out of reach of either Dane or the flames looming large and orange in the night. “I was present when you tortured your last ghost.”

  Sean looked over at Dane and he returned a glare, tipping his flask up again. He was going through whatever the hell that was fast. And he was standing close enough to the fire to be lit up appealingly, flickering light across the tattoos on his arms. Regardless of the flirting, no way anyone as good-looking as Dane could be interested in Sean.

  “Yeah, well, I was supposed to send you along, too,” said Dane, then turned back to the fire. Sean blinked at him, then glanced at Ned.

  “Does he mean he has a crush on you?” he asked.

  Ned started laughing.

  “I don’t have a crush on the damned ghost. And you ought to go home. It’s past midnight and it’s going to be a bitch getting up tomorrow with the beating you took.”

  Sean wanted to argue, but he knew Dane was right about that. He let Dane and Ned finish burning the pines to the ground and drove himself home. He knew the entire ordeal wasn’t a dream when he woke up the next morning so stiff he could barely pull himself out of bed.

  Painkillers and an extra coffee later, he was yawning in front of his first class of the day. Sean definitely felt worse than he had yesterday, even on practically no food, and he more or less dumped himself straight into bed when he finally made it home. By Wednesday, though, he was feeling recovered enough to sta
rt looking into Bethany Becker. He had no idea whether Dane was doing it, but he’d guess no. Sean considered calling, but he’d have to use the Crypt Coffee line and asking Winter or whoever was working to hand him over to Dane made him hesitate. In the end he put it off and instead dug into online articles.

  News articles made it sound like she died from the car crash. There was a memorial but Sean had already missed it—it had been on Monday. Her social media accounts were already taken over by relatives posting thanks for everyone who’d reached out and declarations of how they’d never forget her. Bethany ran a small business, though, and the site for that was still up and running, so that’s where Sean went.

  The page was purple, green, and white, the name Betherbal scrawled casually across the top. Sean clicked through to a page that sold all-natural balms and salves, another that was teas and dried herbs, still another of soaps. All items were guaranteed homemade by Bethany herself. When he clicked on her ‘about’ page and read where she lived, though, he decided he’d drop by Crypt Coffee again.

  “Will that be all, professor?” asked Winter once he’d ordered a regular coffee.

  “I want Dane to pick out a muffin or cake for me,” said Sean. “Think he’s got a free moment?”

  “Yeah, probably,” she said.

  Winter rolled with things well, and Sean was grateful she didn’t really ask. It was a strange question. He took a seat and pulled up the Betherbal webpage.

  “Here you go,” said Dane, slamming a plate down on the table, adding under his breath, “asshole.”

  “Hey, don’t leave yet.”

  Dane turned back, crossed his arms, and eyed Sean.

  “Problem with your lemon poppy seed? Going to interfere with a test you’ve been studying for?”

  “I have information,” said Sean, waving Dane to the seat opposite him. Dane instead leaned in over Sean’s shoulder, unsurprisingly stubborn. Unfortunately it also meant he was hovering a few inches away from Sean, who could feel his body heat and smell him. Whatever Dane used to wash with, it suited him and wasn’t overpowering. Sean swallowed and pointed to the screen to try to distract himself.