by J-F. Dubeau
“Free me, and you can have your heart’s desire,” it promised, turning around slowly. Once it faced him, the creature took three slow and deliberate steps toward the boy, stopping an arm’s length away. André wanted to run, to void his bowels, to claw his own eyes out. But he couldn’t. Was he frozen out of fear? Curiosity? For a second he knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that if he did not escape immediately, he would not live to see another morning. Yet he stood, transfixed by the thing’s empty stare.
Bang!
André jumped, startled by the sound of the crowbar he’d unconsciously dropped to the floor. As he looked down to the source of the noise, a scalding cold hand closed around his left wrist and yanked him into the shadows.
The thing burned its message into André’s brain like a hot branding iron: “Free me!” It screamed wordlessly into the teenager’s naked mind: “FREE ME.” But André, the boy whose weaknesses had led him to bully his former best friend, whose skull throbbed with the force of a god’s command, whose eyes were blurry with tears of frantic terror, shook his head.
The thing was displeased. Calmly, methodically, without wasting time on further threats, it started to remove pieces of André’s body. It began with his throat, taking great care to keep the boy alive during the process.
Unable to scream or beg, André could do nothing but watch as his muscles, bones, and organs were pulled from him, stretched into new shapes, and added to the beautiful, morbid mural in Venus McKenzie’s shed.
DANIEL
THE DRIVE FROM Sherbrooke to Saint-Ferdinand wasn’t unlike traveling through time. If Daniel’s white Civic was the time machine, the roads that led him back home were like the pages of history, flipping backward the farther he drove.
Sherbrooke, despite its size, remained a fairly modern city. Being home to a respected university made it more vibrant than neighboring towns. It was the largest municipality in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, but it hadn’t become too touristy. However, as one went south on the highway and passed Magog, the lights changed and then completely disappeared. The highway inevitably gave way to small country roads, and before long, civilization had been swallowed up by long stretches of dark forest and empty black fields.
While already taking great risks with his life by going well above the speed limit, Daniel was also committing the capital sin of occasionally looking at his phone. He wasn’t in the habit of doing such things. This was the kind of behavior Stephen Crowley had warned him against and that Daniel had always obeyed. On this one drive, however, he simply couldn’t help it. The words that appeared on his phone were too important.
Can I see you? Your place. 1 hr?
The text was from Sasha. The girlfriend whom he had neglected for weeks. When she had stood him up at Daisy’s Diner, he assumed that their relationship was over.
He tried many things to keep his mind off his destination. Sure, he was driving home, but he was also driving back to her. He’d regretted how he’d ignored her. How he had kept her in the dark instead of seeking her support. Fortunately, regret still left room to learn. Seeing her name on his phone was an important reminder of that. If he was being given a second chance, he wasn’t going to waste it.
Luck smiled on Dan during his drive. No stray animal jumped out in front of his car. No cops were waiting to catch people speeding. There was almost no traffic, nor did he get stuck behind a tractor hogging up the road. He made it home in record time.
A small part of him hoped he’d see both his girlfriend’s minivan and his father’s SUV parked out front. Then they could all talk together. Clear everything up with everyone at once, like a great big intervention. Unfortunately, the driveway was empty except for his father’s boat trailer, covered in a tarp.
Standing under the porch light, he saw a single man, about his own height and build, wearing a crisp suit. Chris Hagen. He waved, revealing something in his hand. Sasha’s phone.
For a second Daniel considered simply plowing into the reporter. This wasn’t what he’d sped home to see. There was no logical scenario that explained why this reporter would have texted him from his girlfriend’s phone. Instead he hit the brakes and jumped out of his car.
“Where’s Sasha?” Daniel said.
A warm smile etched itself onto Hagen’s face as he walked toward the car. “Daniel!” he said, extending a hand.
The teenager slapped it away, the Crowley anger burning hot within him. “Where is she? Why do you have her phone?”
“Hey, hey, calm down, buddy. That’s what I’m here to talk about. Do you mind if we go inside?”
“Tell me where she is!” Daniel’s fists were clenched, and he could feel his face turning red with barely restrained fury. He knew the posture well, having seen it in his own father.
“You are your father’s son.” Hagen sighed. “Calm down, Daniel. There’s no reason to get excited.”
The words only flared up the teenager’s anger. He wanted to punch the smug grin off the man’s face, choke whatever he knew out of him. Instead he took a breath. Recognizing his thoughts for what they were, Daniel Crowley managed to make the conscious decision to cool down. Like a man who’s fallen overboard into the cold ocean, he fought back the initial panic. He pushed against the shock and confusion that might have caused him to swim in the wrong direction and drown. Instead he breached the surface of a sea of calm, took another deep breath, and brought himself back to center.
“Fine. Let’s go inside.”
Daniel unlocked and opened the door, turning on lights as he entered. His guest, however, stayed at the threshold. For once, his smile wavered and uncertainty flashed over his face.
“What are you, a vampire? Do you need an invitation?” asked Daniel sarcastically.
“No, I’m sorry. I was just . . . ,” But he didn’t finish the sentence.
Instead Chris Hagen stepped inside the Crowley home, setting his foot down like he was walking over a crystal floor. He looked around the entranceway and then the living room. The decor was sparse, as one would expect from the home of two bachelors. Only a few paintings and trinkets left over from the inspector’s ex-wife added any flair to the house.
Yet the visitor’s gaze passed over every detail as if he were in a museum. Every armchair, every table, its own exhibit for him to discover and learn from. He leaned in close to certain objects while ignoring others. The pattern was easy to notice. The items, decorations, and knickknacks that most attracted the reporter’s attention were those most out of step with the rest of the home. Those things that had been left behind by Daniel’s mother, Marguerite.
“Are you looking for something specific?” Daniel asked, unsure what to make of this behavior.
“Ah! Yes. I’m sorry. It feels strange to finally be in the home of the ever-elusive Inspector Crowley.”
“You haven’t been able to—You know what? I don’t care. Why do you have Sasha’s phone?”
Daniel had indeed had enough and decided to capitalize on his imposing stature, taking a few steps closer to Chris Hagen. Unfortunately, the reporter didn’t seem intimidated in the least. In fact, the proximity had no apparent effect on him, apart from perhaps a softening of his features.
“Yes. Again, I apologize. I lack focus tonight.”
Hagen fished the cell phone out of his pocket and handed it over. It was Sasha’s, all right—a rather recent model tucked into a protective case of worn, dulled pink plastic jewels. A small charm in the shape of a cat hung from it. Daniel grabbed it from him.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found it off the road, not far from here. I’m shocked the screen isn’t even scratched.”
“So you don’t know where she is, then?” Daniel felt the Crowley rage returning, but it was cut short by Hagen’s next words.
The expression of detached amusement that seemed to permeate most of Hagen’s moods evaporated, leaving in its place a frown of deep concern.
“I didn’t say that. I think . . . the pol
ite thing here would be to ask you to sit down for this.”
The teenager took a step back. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest. For a moment, even though he was looking directly at Chris Hagen, he could no longer see the man.
Do you even realize where you live?
Those were some of the very last words he’d heard from Sasha. Clearly, Hagen had some bad news for him, and suddenly, more than he ever had in the past, Dan realized exactly where he lived. Saint-Ferdinand. The village where the boogeyman was real.
The town where people died.
“Just tell me,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion.
“Actually, I’m surprised your father didn’t tell you already. Probably trying to spare you from the trauma.”
“Hagen!”
“Again, I’m sorry.” Hagen extended his hand again, but this time to lay it gently on Daniel’s shoulder. “Her body was found two days ago, in the cellar of one of Gédéon LaFrenière’s warehouses.”
The impact of the news hit Daniel like a truck, knocking him onto the couch. Try as he might, he couldn’t put his thoughts in order. Should he be sad? Angry at his father for keeping such an important secret from him? It didn’t take long for him to settle on self-loathing and remorse. Pain suffocated him. If only he’d paid more attention to Sasha, followed her advice, things might be different.
“Daniel? Dan?” Hagen’s voice finally pierced through the haze. “Daniel. We can still save her.”
The statement short-circuited the young Crowley’s grief, snapping him out of his downward spiral. “Save her? You just told me she’s dead.”
“Daniel. Did you look into this?” Chris pulled something out of his jacket again, another business card. He tapped the winged hourglass logo printed above his name.
“I did, but . . . ”
The god. He could bring back his girlfriend. In fact, maybe he could do more than that. Ghosts and gods, they were part of the fabric of Saint-Ferdinand. Myths made fact. If they were real, then why couldn’t he defy the finality of death itself? Just like William and Beatrice Bergeron had planned for their daughter.
“Then you know that there’s much more to this village than meets the eye.” Hagen indicated the hourglass again. “Tell me what you’ve learned, Daniel. Together we can bring her back.”
VENUS
VENUS HAD COME to Sherbrooke Hospital for a specific reason. Meeting up with Abraham would have been a short detour had they not interrupted Ezekiel’s attempted “mercy killing.” With that situation apparently handled, she could refocus on her true goal: to get into her uncle’s office.
According to her uncle Randy, there was a wealth of information in there on the old Saint-Ferdinand Craftsmen’s Association. Particularly about the more secretive side of the group. He’d made a crude drawing of where she could find the box that held his research. The illustration wasn’t very good, and the pen he’d used had kept running out of ink. It looked like something a high school dungeon master might sketch for his players. But she and Ezekiel managed to reach her uncle’s locked office after only a few wrong turns.
This was where the circus performer ended up being useful. When confronted with the locked door, the stranger produced a small set of picklocks. That he carried this kind of thing around as a matter of fact made him even more distasteful to Venus.
She assumed they would no longer need the crude drawing. How hard could it be to find an engraved wooden box in a small office? As the door swung open, though, she could see that her uncle Randy was a veritable hoarder, and his office was ground zero for several of his obsessions.
There were jarred specimens in formaldehyde randomly stashed on shelves. Innumerable books formed towers that had to be carefully navigated to get to the desk. Stacks of medical journals from around the world were piled in every available space. But what made the search most difficult was that her uncle collected wooden boxes. There were dozens of them, strewn in every corner of the space. Thankfully, the illustration made it easier to spot the proper one.
It was larger than expected. The size of a footlocker. The cover was inlaid with the symbol of the Craftsmen, the eye with a spiral iris. An image that had been ubiquitous in Saint-Ferdinand. Each corner of the box also had a distinctive carved decoration, depicting some sort of monster or demon.
Inside it, Venus had been told, was all the information she’d need to find the rest of the Craftsmen. She knew Nathan Cicero and her grandfather Neil had been members, but there were others. Randy knew precious little about the god and how to deal with it. Hopefully these others would be more helpful.
“What are we even doing here?” Abraham said, peering in at all the junk.
The large boy had caught up to them. He’d texted Venus that his father was stable again, but that they wouldn’t know more until morning. She had quickly recognized that he needed a distraction, and invited him to join them.
“Help. I hope,” she answered.
The box, however, was somewhat of a disappointment. The exterior might have looked like something from a wizard’s hoard, but the contents were quite bland. Piles of paper. Receipts stapled together with airplane tickets. Maps and brochures from travel agencies that had probably gone out of business decades ago. These weren’t the tools for fighting ancient eldritch horrors; these were the instruments needed to file one’s taxes.
Venus had been told that she’d need to decipher the information, but she’d expected an ancient code or language, like the ones she’d seen in the movies. Undaunted, she quickly put together that the boarding passes corresponded to various destinations marked down on the maps in the chest. There were also several receipts for boat rentals that she managed to link to maritime locations also noted on the maps. She then pulled out her laptop and, using the university’s Wi-Fi network, started researching the various locations on the maps. Then she shifted her focus to the boarding passes.
Ezekiel quickly got bored and excused himself to go smoke outside. Abraham, however, remained, watching over Venus’s shoulder as she got to work.
She knew he didn’t understand most of what she was doing. Browsing web pages and scouring social media sites, she took down copious notes. Within a couple of hours, Venus had zeroed in on two specific profiles. Both of them boarding agents for Air Canada. In front of her, hastily written on what could have been a hundred Post-it notes, were these women’s names, addresses, work schedule, age, family trees. She had also written down personal details, from religious and political beliefs, to the names of their pets and their favorite colors.
When it looked like she could no longer distill another drop of useful information, Venus leaned back in the leather chair in her uncle’s office and smiled nervously at Abraham. Her eyes were bloodshot and baggy, yet they gleamed with mischievous pride. At that moment she was a kid with a handful of firecrackers, about to strike a match. Putting a finger to her lips to keep him quiet, she picked up her uncle’s desk phone, looked up a number from one of her notes, and punched it in. “Hi? Is this Sarah?” she said in a chipper tone once someone picked up on the other end. “Hi! This is Melanie Chagnon! We met at that Christmas party last year? Anyway, I need a huuuuuuge favor.”
Abraham listened in awe as his friend, a fifteen year-old teenager, became a woman named Melanie working for a major airline. Her eyes darted between her notes, picking up details here and there to keep up with the idle chitchat coming from the other end of the line.
“I was supposed to pull out a passenger list for half a dozen flights for one of our travel agencies.” She rearranged a few notes while listening. “Oh no, really old flights. Here, I’ll give you the numbers.”
Several more minutes passed while Sarah looked up the information. All the while, Venus gossiped about a coworker she’d never had and his horrible behavior at an event she’d never been to. Midway through the conversation, she had to scramble to look up information about some union rules toward which the conversation had gravitated. Finally the woma
n on the other line found what she needed.
“You’ve got them? Oh, you are awesome! Here, let me give you my e-mail address.” Venus spouted off an address she had created moments before, and continued her small talk until she could verify that the information she had requested had indeed been received. She then politely concluded the conversation, claiming to hope that she and the poor woman on the other end of the line would run into each other soon. Once she hung up, she exhaled as if she hadn’t been breathing for the full duration of the call.
“That lady’s going to be having one awkward conversation sometime soon,” Abraham said jokingly.
“Yeah, well, it couldn’t be helped,” Venus answered, rubbing her eyes.
“What do you expect to learn from this anyways?”
“Well . . . ,” She started explaining while simultaneously copying the passenger lists onto a spreadsheet. “We know my grandfather was doing stuff for these Craftsmen. I’m betting that the reason all these receipts and boarding passes were kept was because these trips were ‘business’ expenses.” With a series of rapid clicks on her mouse, Venus re-sorted the passenger lists and proceeded to highlight the names that came up in more than one of them.
“Assuming he didn’t always travel alone . . . ,” She turned the laptop so Abraham could get a better look. “We now have at least a partial list of members.”
“Good God . . . ,” Abraham pointed to the names highlighted in green. “Lucien Peña? Elijah Byrd? Sophie Courtier? These are all friends of my dad.”
RANDY
SIMPLE TRICKS FOR complex problems.
Randy had been practicing necromancy for most of his life. Emphasis on practicing. There was no wizardry to it. No reason or logic. The only study of the art involved learning some tricks, incantations, and rituals by heart and repeating them verbatim. When he got it right, it worked. When he messed up, it failed. There were no accidental creations of monstrous, undead abominations. The results were always exactly as described in his father’s notes and nothing he did required any particular training or skill. If he knew the code, he could break the laws of life and death.