All the Wicked Girls

by Chris Whitaker

  He sat on the front bench beneath the shadow of Jesus and at that moment Savannah thought maybe they were right to call him an angel.

  He raised his hands in prayer and before she turned away she saw them shaking so bad he could barely keep them pressed.

  11

  Summer

  I fall in and out of myself. Who I think I am ain’t always who I am. I can go weeks where I slip from one person into another. It’s like gettin’ lost in the woods. I’ll pass by somethin’ I know maybe three or four times, but it don’t lead me out, it don’t show me the way.

  I went to that fancy school with Savannah. The Maidenville Academy. It was ugly how much they had; the music room and the shined floors, the robot kids that slow-stepped with their hands neat behind their backs. Part of me ached for them. And for me.

  I told Savannah I’d spoke to Momma about it, that she knew, but she didn’t ’cause pipe dreams are just that. They ain’t got no groundin’ beyond.

  I met an old man in a dark-wood office with all kinda certificates on the wall behind, like they meant somethin’ more than vanity. He spoke and I smiled polite and Savannah put a hand on my shoulder. She told him I was special like that was somethin’ good, and then she smiled the whole drive back. That smile though, it was so much like Bobby’s . . . so much missin’ from it.

  *

  I found an article in the Maidenville Herald from three years back. Bobby and Savannah’s boy was named Michael, and he died in a car wreck when he was four years old ’cause a drunk ran a stop sign and his car seat hadn’t been fitted right. There was a small shot of them, the three before, so happy I cried right there in the library, till the old lady came over and handed me a glass of water and asked if I was all right. I don’t know, that’s what I told her, ’cause I didn’t.

  *

  I ain’t that big, anywhere. I ain’t tall, my tits ain’t as big as Raine’s. By the age of two you could tell us apart easy—her face seems to fit together in a way that mine don’t. It’s all right that she’s prettier, I ain’t jealous. She gets a lot of attention from the boys, always has, and not just ’cause she’s willin’. I saw the teachers look at her sometimes, the older men who carried that stain of pathetic about them; divorced ’cause they reckoned there was greener pastures waitin’ on them, skinny arms and potbellies and thinnin’ hair. They’d gawk for a few seconds then catch themselves, file the sight, and call on it later, when they reasoned away the guilt ’cause she was so much a woman.

  I guess I looked pretty funny playin’ the cello, what with it bein’ so big. I felt like I was some kinda experiment—give the Ryan girl an instrument and see what kinda sound she makes. It came so easy. The first time Savannah settled behind me, her hand over mine, her head over my shoulder. I took a deep breath and played a note. I liked the sound; it was soft but strong.

  Before long I could play Kalinka, and Bach’s second suite, and then his Arioso from Cantata 156. The music, the notes, I heard them full and rich and I let them run together. It’s hard to explain, it just is. Sittin’ behind it like it was armor, my mouth shut so no one could hear how I talk.

  Savannah would look at me when I was playin’ and I’d see her throat move as she swallowed. Sometimes she’d close her eyes and hold her breath so long. Other times she’d breathe real fast and shallow.

  There was a photograph of Michael on her desk; sand hair and brown eyes and a straight mouth, like maybe you had to earn his smile with more than an ask and a lens. I could see both of them in him. Savannah glanced at it sometimes when she thought I weren’t lookin’, and I caught that sharp kinda pain that told of what was wrong with her and with Bobby and what was wrong with them together. The gloss so thick, I saw it drip and run.

  I could’ve cried and died for them.

  *

  I was playin’ and we had the door open. It was summer and the heat was heady and Savannah had switched the fan off ’cause it was noisy. She was sittin’ in front of me, her eyes closed as I played a cello arrangement of Étude Op. 25, No. 7 in E ’cause I loved it. Chopin. I would’ve been one of them ladies that fainted in his room come the end.

  I saw Bobby stop by the doorway. He met my eye and smiled at me and I smiled back.

  It felt different havin’ somebody else watch—havin’ Bobby watch. He’d come from the yard so his shirt was dark with sweat. He’d cropped his hair short and Savannah was gettin’ on him about it, sayin’ he looked more like a soldier than a pastor, and he’d rolled his eyes and winked at me and I’d laughed.

  I played for him, held the bow tighter and sat straighter while he watched. That piece, sometimes Savannah played along on the grand they had by the window, and that piece stole her away someplace far.

  Bobby had that same look, and for a while he was lost till he found me and nodded. And then he dropped his eyes down.

  My legs were open, the cello between them; it ain’t the most ladylike way to sit. My skirt was high, bunched up at the waist.

  Bobby followed my leg from my foot up higher.

  I played and watched Savannah as she breathed in time with each note, her chest risin’ and fallin’ and risin’.

  Bobby’s gaze at the top of my thighs. I saw him but he didn’t look away, he just stood there starin’ like I was a sight. And then he took a step forward and leaned to the side, his shoulder against the doorframe like he couldn’t hold himself up no more. That sad in them, in both of them.

  He leaned and drew breath as the notes rose high above the three of us, and the room and the house and town.

  I kept playin’. My throat ran dry and my heart raced and my cheeks were hot. That was a moment, right then, where I floated up and watched myself and watched Bobby watching me. A crossroads where both paths lead you someplace where light and dark ain’t nothing but shades of the same gray.

  And though my hands were starting to shake and I was struggling to grip the bow, I knew what I was doing so I did it. I pushed my leg out a little farther. I saw Bobby dip his head an inch, so I pushed out more, and I could tell by the way he was focused, and by the way he swallowed, that he could see up my skirt.

  We held that way froze, just me and Bobby and his wife with her eyes closed. The pain of what it was I hadn’t yet known; the evolving tragedy that was and would be our lives.

  12

  Clara Stokes and the Demon Hunters

  A week had passed since the people of Grace had seen the sun above their town, or the moon or the stars, or anything but the heavy cloud that kept them buried in dark. It was the first sight that greeted them in the morning, when they rose early and pulled open drapes, and the last at night, when they dropped to aching knees and said goodnight prayers.

  They kept a half-eye on the horizon, on the wall of blazing sunlight that ran the town line and baked the surroundings hard.

  It dropped each day, that’s what folk reckoned, so low that neighborhood kids threw baseballs at it and climbed on flat roofs and stood on toes to try and touch it. Sometimes it moved, swirled and twisted till a crowd drew and spread word it was time.

  The widow Beauregard told a frowning group in Mae’s Diner that she reckoned it was the Bird, that he was back and summoning something so dark she didn’t sleep no more, just prayed and prayed ’cause prayer was the only weapon of the righteous. She’d been waved down when her back was turned but the Panic still gripped throats, so while the smoke was still just that, people began a slow search for the flame.

  A couple small pieces had started showing up in the Brookdale Chronicle and the Maidenville Herald. Word did spread of the sights that could be seen on Hallow Road, that long straight stretch of road that led from Grace to beyond. Cars had been spotted, left lazy in the dirt halfway to the line, people littering the green fields, heads tilted and mouths hung as they moved between Grace and Windale, dark and light.

  *

  Raine rose with a sharp pain in her gut and first thought maybe it was the booze ’cause she’d snuck out with Danny
Tremane again, but when she gulped water straight from the faucet the pain got worse. It was Summer; she had to get her sister back. The week had passed so quick and jagged, the fear climbing every morning she woke and saw her daddy beat at the kitchen table after another night of empty searching. And so she slipped from the house onto the dark streets of town and she walked them fast till her head pounded and her shirt clung damp to her back.

  She called Danny from the pay phone on Jackson Ranch Road and he told her he was busy. She told him please and he cut the line, and she slammed the receiver down so hard it broke.

  *

  When Noah opened the door, Raine pushed past him and walked into the kitchen like she’d been there before. It was tired and the cabinet doors were falling off and he looked embarrassed.

  “Are you okay?” Noah said.

  She ran a hand up and tousled her hair. Her eyes were blackened ’cause she’d slept in her makeup. She saw his worry and it pissed her off ’cause he didn’t know nothing about her.

  She pulled herself onto the kitchen counter, then crossed her legs and rubbed a hand along her bare thigh like the muscle was tight.

  “Can I fix you somethin’? A drink?”

  She shook her head, then she stared at him till he wilted. “I can’t sleep, Noah. I’m scared now.”

  “We’ll keep lookin’, later, after I finish at the station.”

  She rubbed her eyes like she might cry and he walked over. He put a hand on her shoulder and she slipped from the counter and laid her head on his chest, made a noise like she was sobbing but there weren’t no tears at all.

  “I have to find her,” she said. “It’s been too long.”

  She wondered how far he’d strayed from his depth. She could smell her own perfume, so sweet it made her gag, and beneath it the sweat and the fear and all that was turning real.

  “Will you do somethin’ for me?” she said.

  “ ’Course, anything you need,” he said.

  *

  Black drove down Lott Road, passing by Glenhurst and shooting a look in the rearview. He kept the speed down and flashed the lights at a couple dead turns. With the sky so dark they’d already had a couple of accidents to deal with.

  Trix had taken the call. It’d come from Clara Stokes and it was about the Ryan girl. Clara wouldn’t give no details to Trix, wouldn’t talk to no one but Black, which weren’t all that surprising. Black knew Clara, knew she was the raw kinda lonely that meant it’d take an hour of iced tea and small talk before she got round to what it was. He’d left Noah behind, though he’d wanted to come. Black knew Noah was getting close with Raine so he’d told Trix to keep a lid on the call. That way he could stop the Ryans heading to Clara’s place and getting worked up on the drive.

  Clara lived in a small house by a pocket of swampland that bled down to the Red. He’d been to her place five years back, when they had a long week of biblical rain that flooded most of the area.

  He’d slept three hours the night before, woke in the dead night and reached for a bottle of whiskey. A week. The Ryans were more than anxious. Joe and Tommy had rolled through the square that morning in a fiery mood, stopping only to pick up coffee at Mae’s and shoot hard glances at everyone inside. Black had passed Summer’s details to Sheriff Ernie Redell but they were all working the assumption she’d run. That long year, girl after girl, it’d driven them all to the brink and none were keen to revisit. Ernie had a theory the Bird was dead, the reason behind it little more than wishful. The doubt was there though, it kept Black in his chair instead of bed each night, running over a copy of the thick file with a whole lot of nothing in it.

  He pulled the cruiser into a patch of mud right outside Clara’s place. She was sitting out front on the porch. The house was low and old, every board needed replacing. There was a pile of soiled sheets and some engine parts strewn. Clara had a deadbeat son who was serving time over in Pickensville for some misdemeanor or another.

  Black got out. There weren’t neighbors; it was quiet ’cept for the sound of a low branch scraping the roof of the house.

  Clara stood when Black reached her, filled a pitcher with iced tea for him, and then sat again.

  “This cloud,” she said, by way of a greeting.

  He nodded, sat opposite and sipped his tea, pleased to find it was laced with rum. He glanced at her, at the baked lines in her face and the thinning white hair and the coal-black eyes.

  “I kept sayin’ the storm was comin’ but so far ain’t nothin’.” she said.

  She’d lit a kerosene lamp. It flickered on the wood between them.

  “I got a call about the cloud from –”

  “Bailey from the church?” she cut in.

  He nodded.

  “He said he was gonna call. I told him there ain’t no point but he’s a stubborn old sumbitch.”

  She rolled a cigarette, her fingers thin and shaking bad.

  “How’s Carson doin’?” Carson was her grandson, lived over in Sweet Water with his momma.

  She shrugged. “Reckon they call me?”

  “Trix said you might know somethin’ about Summer Ryan.”

  She licked the paper, stuck it down, then took a good while to get it lit.

  “She left a note,” Clara said, squinting up at him, a grain of tobacco stuck to her lip.

  “She did.”

  “So she ran?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “But you’re gettin’ worried, right?”

  He took a long drink and looked on silent as she topped it off.

  “Joe and Ava?”

  “As you’d reckon. So what’ve you got to tell me, Clara?”

  “I saw her a couple times.”

  “When?”

  “Maybe a month back. Maybe two or three. I got pills, I can’t remember things too good when I’m taking ’em.”

  “Right.”

  “She weren’t alone. That’s why I called. I thought it was strange . . . I ain’t the type to meddle but it played on my mind. And then I heard she was missin’ and I thought I’d better call you.”

  “Who was it you saw with her?”

  “It was raining, both times. That kinda falling rain that damn near washed me outta my home. So I was standing out front those days, just in case it crept up on me.”

  “Who did you see with Summer?” he said, gentle.

  She dropped her cigarette to the floor and stamped it with her shoe. He saw blue veins on the top of her foot, pumped up high like they were trying to split.

  “Didn’t seem right being as he’s much older than her . . . ain’t kin or nothin’. And he was holding an umbrella so I almost couldn’t make him out, but he’s got that hair.”

  “Who?” Black said, this time pushing.

  “Samson, from the church. Samson Lumen. The Angel.”

  Black drew a breath, his mind running to Pastor Lumen. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  *

  Noah and Purv laid back in the soft grass by the cypress tree, staring straight up at the dark sky and sharing a cigarette.

  “You reckon we should pick up some silver bullets?” Purv said.

  “Why?”

  “For the Bird. In case we find him.”

  “I think silver bullets are for werewolves.”

  “A stake, then.”

  “That’s vampires.”

  “Well, what kills birds?”

  “Rice.”

  “I’ll pick some up from Ginny’s.”

  “You realize he ain’t an actual bird?”

  “We’re huntin’ motherfuckin’ demons,” Purv said, holding the hunting knife out in front. “I’ll slay the Bird. I’ll cut his fuckin’ wings off so he can’t fly no more.”

  Noah laughed.

  Purv traced the blade with his finger.

  “I was thinkin’ about that temple they found in Hell’s Gate, by Hartville. All them bones. Some of ’em was human, that’s the way I heard it. A skull, ma
ybe it was from a kid or somethin’.”

  “Probably bullshit.”

  “Probably.”

  “Are you worried about what we’re doin’?” Purv said.

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Yeah. I like stealin’, you know that –”

  “I do.”

  “But I take shit people ain’t even gonna miss. Stealin’ files from a police station . . .”

  Noah had a copy of the file in the trunk of the Buick. Raine asked and he did it. She said if he could get Black’s file—the file on the Briar girls—the file with the names of the bad men, then they’d have a place to start. She said they wouldn’t do nothing but stop by the houses and watch awhile to see if there was any sign of Summer, ’cause she needed to do something, and time weren’t on their side no more. He got that.

  So when Black was out on a call and Trix was busy and Rusty was sleeping in his chair, Noah had gone into the file room and searched. And he’d seen shit he had no business seeing, photos that’d keep him awake this life and the next.

  “What you reckon we’ll do when we get to New Orleans?” Purv said.

  Noah closed his eyes and smiled. It never took Purv long to swing talk to New Orleans. They’d made the plan when they were ten, on a day when Purv took a royal hiding and had turned up on Noah’s doorstep in the early hours looking for a place to hole up while he tried to figure out if anything more than his life was broke. They’d settled on New Orleans for no other reason than they’d heard about the women at Mardi Gras, and that was a sight both were keen to witness.

  “I reckon we’ll find a cheap apartment to rent, nothin’ fancy. Then we’ll find work, maybe in a bar or somethin’.”

  “Good thing I got the job at the Whiskey Barrel. I can say I got experience,” Purv said.

  “That’s right.”

  “I was checkin’ for the hospitals. There’s a couple units down there. We’ll take a look, choose the one with the prettiest nurses.”

  Noah smiled.

  Purv cleared his throat. “I was thinkin’ as well, I know we don’t never talk about it, but what Missy said . . . You can’t skip no more sessions.”

  “I know. It’s just with Raine needing us, and I got this badge on. I kinda forget awhile, you know?”