“Look, he threw the table. I just found a replacement. It’s even the same company that made the original.”
“It lacks the proper sentimental value.” Andy was just messing with him now and he knew it.
“I don’t need to know about you having sex with any of your students on that table, Andy.”
“I never had sex with any of my students. They’re far too young for my tastes.” The old man moved into his house and waved for Carl to follow. Rather than risk another glare, the sheriff obeyed.
“So what did you find out?”
“I found out you’re as impatient as your daddy. That’s why he always sucked at poker.” The man moved into the kitchen and poured them both a cup of coffee from a pot so fresh it was still steaming. When they’d both fixed the cups to their tastes, he settled down at the table and held up the linked chain that Carl had brought for him to look over.
“This makes about as much sense as a square tire. So if you’re looking for some kind of cosmic revelation, you’re wasting your time.”
“I’m just trying to figure out why someone put that in my house, Andy.” He looked at the man and took a sip of coffee. “I mean, they broke into the house to put that on my table. They didn’t take anything; they didn’t stay around. So I figure it’s got to mean something.”
“It’s mostly a charm bracelet. But you have to remember that charm bracelets have meaning, too. They hold charms. In this case the little tokens on here are charms for fertility and luck, mostly. But there’s a few of them that I can’t identify and it isn’t for lack of trying.” His thick index finger pointed to a small lump that could have been a snake eating itself or could have been a stylized seashell. It was hard to say with any certainty because the piece was old and not well kept. According to Frank Blackbourne, it had been buried for a few decades. That wasn’t the sort of thing that was good for preserving metal.
“You know anyone who might be able to help with that?”
“You think I’d have called you back if I hadn’t already checked?” Again with the laser eyes. “Similar symbols to this have been found over the years. No one knows for sure what they mean. There’s a possibility it’s a symbol for a fertility god or goddess. There’s also a chance that it’s just been beat to hell from being in the ground and then washed off by somebody who didn’t know how to clear away all the debris without damaging the metal.”
“So mostly it’s luck and baby making with a side of who the heck knows?”
“That about sums it up. It’s the who the heck knows you should be worried about.”
“Why’s that?”
“Most of this is just local hokum. A few of the symbols, the ones I can’t figure out, have a long association with sorcery and human sacrifice.”
Carl carefully plucked the chain from the older man’s hand. “Well, I thank you for the help, Andy. And now I’m gonna get this off your hands, because if I had one person looking for it, I might have others and you don’t need any more tables trashed on my account.”
Andy stood up and nodded his head. “Might not be a bad notion at that.” The old man took one last sip of his coffee. “I’m still waiting to hear back from a couple of people, but that’s about the best I can do for you. Whatever you’re dealing with, you take care. A lot of people think all that nonsense about old cults still hanging around is a joke, but the one thing history tells us again and again is that a man and his religion aren’t always easy to separate. Anyone playing around with that sort of thing is likely to risk getting burned.”
“Well, I appreciate it, Andy.” He tucked the charms into the inside pocket of his jacket and made sure to seal the zipper on the pocket as an added precaution. “You have anyone else come creeping around here, you call me and I’ll get right on over.”
“No thank you. I have a perfectly fine 12 gauge in the closet, and I can destroy my own furniture without any help from you.” He patted Carl on the shoulder and led him toward the door. Just like that he’d been dismissed.
“You’re not ever gonna let that go, are you?”
“We’ll see.”
“Thanks again, Andy. I owe you one.”
“Owe me a new porch is what you owe me. Did you see the scratch you boys put in my wood finish?”
Carl beat a hasty retreat before the man could talk him into replacing the whole damned wraparound. He didn’t mention to Andy that there had been a ritual sacrifice made recently. Much as he admired the man, he didn’t necessarily trust that the retired professor was the sort to keep that sort of thing close to his chest.
He was going to have to call Wade again. There were stranger and stranger things going on here. He knew Wade Griffin well enough not only to trust him, but to trust in his ability not to spread information where it wasn’t needed.
The cell phone beeped and he answered it. “What’s new and happening, Nichole?”
“Got a missing boy not far from where you are, Carl. Billy McRae fell into a hole in the ground and his friends called to report it.”
Billy McRae was supposed to be in school. He knew the McRae family well enough to know that much. Billy was all of twelve. Then again he’d played hooky a few times when he was that age, too.
“Where are the little darlings?”
“Mile marker 26. Not far from where you have a couple of deputies posted. Want me to have them take care of it?”
“Nope. Been too much activity over there. I’ll handle the kids, but call Kyle Turner over at the fire station and ask him to get an engine up there will you?”
“Okay then. You still bringing lunch over here? It’s your turn.”
“It’s on the agenda, Nichole. Barbeque pork sandwiches and fries.”
“And why don’t you bring some animal tranquilizers back with you? That big guy you hauled in yesterday is getting all kinds of fussy.”
“You just sing him a few lullabies and I’ll see what I can do.”
“You don’t pay me enough to sing. Carl.”
“Nichole, you know I love you, but I’ve heard you sing. Sounded like two turkeys in a death-match. No one needs to hear that again.”
“That’s just cold.”
“Honey, you shouldn’t sing and I shouldn’t dance.” He chuckled. “Some truths are just plain painful.”
“Just get your butt in gear, mister.”
“Yes, boss.”
He turned on the flashers. No reason to keep the kids waiting too long, and he didn’t like the idea of any of the kids falling into one of the old mining pits. Back in the day there’d been a minor gold rush in the area, mostly as a result of Dahlonega getting swarmed with people seeking fortune. Someone had started rumors about the same sort of gold strike in Brennert County. There hadn’t been much to it, of course, but that never stopped the frenzies. There were claims filed, and holes dug and in several cases mineshafts bored into the sides of hills, all to no real avail. The end result was a honeycomb of shafts and holes that were mostly long since forgotten and in many cases had filled in over the course of time. But every couple of years the locals managed to find another hole to fall into and he got the dubious pleasure of finding them and pulling them out.
* * *
Nichole hung up the phone and looked around the sheriff’s office. It was wonderfully quiet, except for the guy in the back. He was screaming up a storm again and she was about done putting up with him. She wasn’t paid enough to put up with that sort of nonsense.
None of the deputies were around except for Fred Angler and he was probably outside and grabbing another smoke. Carl had strict rules about no smoking in the building but he didn’t much care if they snuck around to the back now and then to grab a nicotine fix.
With that in mind, Nichole climbed from her chair, sighed mightily and headed back to see if she could convince the screaming mountain to calm down.
She’d only seen Frank Blackbourne in passing and that was enough to make her talk to Johnny about it and she almost never brought work home with her. B
ut Blackbourne was a beast, pure and simple. Six feet, nine inches tall, and close to four hundred pounds of flesh. She’d been the one to write all the facts down in his file. He was a very big boy.
She unlocked the security doors and locked them again behind her, and then moved down the hallway to the holding cells, careful to follow protocol. It was always best to follow the rules around Carl. He could be a stickler. Not that she blamed him, of course.
Frank Blackbourne stopped yelling the second she entered the holding area. He was sitting down, his arms resting on his knees, and his head lowered, almost to the point where he was looking down at the ground.
“Mister Blackbourne? Is there a reason for all the noise you’re making?” She tried to keep her tone strict, but when she looked at him, really looked at him, she felt her heart rate increase. Damn, but he was big.
The man’s head raised slightly, until she could see the light reflected off his eyes as he stared back at her, his face mostly lost in shadows and the light above him making his hair look almost silvery.
“I don’t want to be here no more.”
“Well now, you should have thought about that before you started trying to beat on the county sheriff.”
“He took from me and mine. I can’t abide that.”
“He did no such thing. You never even said what he stole.”
“He stole from my Meemaw!”
“Son, you need to calm yourself down.” She spoke with authority. She might not feel very adventurous, but she was a trained deputy and knew the best way to keep control of a situation was to act like you were in control of a situation. Well, that and to remember how to shoot if you had to. She doubted it would come to that.
“You need to get it back to me before I go find it!” The man’s voice sounded strained, and he stood up. And when he did, she saw that she was completely wrong. There was no way the man in that cell was only six feet nine inches tall. His skin was looking worse than when he came in, with dark patches of splotchy skin and spots where he was flaking worse than a man with chronic psoriasis. Something was wrong with him, something serious.
“You need a doctor?” She took a step closer, frowning.
“I want it back!” His voice. Something was decidedly wrong. His voice didn’t sound at all right and it didn’t seem to be coming from his mouth.
Nichole shook her head. There was something wrong with him. Something that didn’t make any sense at all and she didn’t think it was just his size.
“You hearing me, Missy? You hearing me talking to you?” Blackbourne stepped closer to the cell wall, his massive body shifting as he slammed his hand into the bars. The wall shook.
Nichole unholstered her weapon. “You better calm down! Right damn now!”
The man’s face was half hidden in shadows, but she could still see his teeth bared as he smiled. “Can’t hurt me with that any more. Can’t just hurt me. I have protection now.”
She frowned. What the hell was he talking about?
“Frank Blackbourne, you step away from the bars or I’ll have to get mean with you.”
Blackbourne’s arm whipped back and then rammed into the bars hard enough to shake the entire wall again. Before she could do more than flinch he did it again and this time the bars bent. Not a lot, but more than they should have. Nothing short of being rammed by a car should have hurt that metal.
Blackbourne’s hands gripped the bars and he leered at her, his eyes blazing, his face red with effort. Blackbourne grunted and pulled and the bars bent some more.
“Screw this.” Nichole pulled the service pistol and aimed for the nasty grin on his face. “Back down right now!”
“Gonna blister your ass, little missy! Gonna whoop your fanny from here to Mississippi, unless you get me what’s miiine!” His voice was distorting further and booming, and worse still, his mouth never stopped leering at her. The voice was coming from elsewhere, she had no doubt about it any longer. The voice was wrong, the words were wrong. He no longer sounded like Frank Blackbourne, not in his voice and not in the words he used.
He strained harder and the metal bars bent with a scream of pain.
And Nichole fired. She pulled the trigger three times, and three bullets slammed into Frank Blackbourne’s head and face. His head snapped back once, twice and then a third time, and he fell back, letting go of the bars.
Jesus, she’d just killed a man. Just that fast it hit her. She’d ended a life. She’d never wanted that, never meant for it to happen but he was scaring the hell out of her.
Her hand trembled and she looked at his body and took a step toward the bars.
And Frank sat up, his face bleeding from a hole in his forehead, where his left eye had been and from a third hole that ripped his mouth into a new shape and revealed the teeth the bullet had shattered as it ran its course.
From somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach the voice called out clearly, “Well naowww, I guess you needs ta be put back in yuur plaaace, misssssy!”
His hands looked wrong. Too big, warped. His arms were so thick, so heavy with muscle, with impossible muscle and veins and, oh, Lord, he was standing back up, bleeding from his face, his head and getting back up.
Nichole stepped back, shaking her head. Not possible. Dead people didn’t stand back up. Dead people didn’t talk from their belly buttons.
“You shut up! You sit right back down on your cot and you shut your mouth!” She was screaming and her voice was shrill and she realized, irrationally, that Carl was right. She really did have a crappy singing voice.
Nichole took aim and fired again, again, again until the there were no bullets left.
Frank didn’t even bother with falling back. Chunks of him blew out and away from his body, but he didn’t seem to care. He grabbed the bars again and ripped back with both of his arms and the metal obligingly tore into rough metal shreds.
Nichole backed up, eyes wide, and fumbled for the spare clip on her belt.
Frank charged toward her, his body still changing.
His face was still bleeding, the leer made worse by the bloody flap of flesh and the broken teeth that grinned at her.
His hands were even bigger when they grabbed at her body.
It’s safe to assume that hands which could tear thick metal bars could have torn Nichole’s body apart with ease. Frank took his time.
And Nichole got to see where that voice was coming from before she died screaming.
* * *
“Something’s wrong,” Griffin said.
Charon said, “What do you mean? I don’t see anything.”
They were seated in Griffin’s truck in front of his apartment building. Griffin pointed toward a dark opening. “That’s the breezeway that leads to my apartment. There are three overhead lights along that breezeway. All three bulbs didn’t go out at once.”
“Meaning someone knocked them out.”
“That would be my guess, yeah.”
“We should just go, Griffin,” Charon said. “Just pull out and we’ll call some of your cop buddies.”
Griffin smiled. “Then we wouldn’t know what’s going on. Here’s what I need you to do. When I get out, slide over into the driver’s seat and lock the doors. Here’s my cell. Anything happens to me, just hit the number marked Carl. If things get really bad, drive away. Fast.” Griffin could see Charon’s eyes in the light from the phone screen. She looked terrified.
“Don’t, Griffin. Don’t go out there.”
Griffin said. “You sound like the schoolmarm in High Noon. This is the sort of thing I do for a living. I’m not expecting it to go bad. I just want you to have a plan. Now lock the door behind me.”
Griffin pushed the dome light override on the console so the interior light wouldn’t come on when he got out of the truck. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and he didn’t want to spoil his night vision or give anyone an easy target. Before he got out of the truck he pulled the Smith & Wesson .357 out of his shoulder holster.
; “See, I’m not exactly unprepared.”
“I still think we should go,” said Charon.
“And you’re probably right. Back soon.”
“You’d better be.”
Griffin stepped out of the truck and closed the door. When he heard the locks click he started walking toward the breezeway. He rolled his shoulders to loosen them and drew slow breaths in through his nose and breathed out through his mouth. Classic calming exercise. Unfortunately it also allowed him to pick up the smell. Some overpoweringly rancid odor was wafting out of the breezeway. It was like sewage, old garbage and rotting meat. No, it was worse.
Griffin slowed as he reached the three stairs that led up to the breezeway. There was someone standing in the shadows. Actually several someones and he wasn’t sure standing was the right word. The indistinct figures seemed to be slightly hunched over and he couldn’t be sure how many of them there were. The smell was getting worse the closer he got to them.
Oh well, no point in being subtle. Griffin said, “Something I can do for you fellows?”
The voice that answered sounded as if it were coming from a distance and as if the speaker might be drowning in some thick substance. “Take the warning.”
“What warning would that be?”
“You saw it. The girl saw it.”
“The writing on the floor? Neat trick. How did you manage it? I’m fascinated by this sort of thing.”
“Take the warning,” the man gurgled.
“Or what?”
“We kill you.”
“Why don’t you come into what light there is so I can see you?”
“You don’t want to see us.”
“Try me.”
The closest figure moved forward in a sort of shuffle. Much of him was still in shadow but Griffin could see that his skin was pale white, what Griffin’s father would have called snake-belly white, and he seemed to have some sort of skin disease. His flesh was covered with boils and leaking sores. The man smiled, revealing oddly sharp teeth. “Still want to see the rest of us? I’m the prettiest.”
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