Blackmail Earth

by Bill Evans

  She shakes her head. A spell, she tells herself. Cast a spell. But her breath still won’t come. It feels like he’s already choking her to death.

  Air freezes in her chest every time he shatters more glass. She hopes she dies before he touches her.

  She thinks that may be her life’s final plea, that her body will choke her to death before his hands—and that knife—can touch her.

  * * *

  Jenna and Dafoe had eventually reached the bedroom and now looked as thoroughly disheveled as the covers. He propped himself on one elbow as she ran her fingertips across his chest. “I feel so ravished,” she said.

  Dafoe moved aside strands of her wet hair. “Me, too.”

  She shivered and grabbed the phone. “I should call Nicci and let her know I’ve ducked out. We always take a break right after the show, but this was a long one.”

  Moments later Jenna watched him read a text message. He mouthed, “I’ve got to go.”

  * * *

  The candelabra rests by her side. It’s her only hope but she can’t lift it. She’s almost paralyzed by panic. She tries to breathe, and hears air whistle weakly through her chest. She manages to lift the candelabra, and thinks that if she could get one good swing at him, she might stop this madness. But she needs one good breath and she can’t get it. She keeps seeing the damage she knows the knife can do.

  “You witches know about sacrifices, don’t you? They can’t be done too fast. You got to take your time. Get as much out of it as you can.”

  He pauses and fear washes over her again.

  “Sacrifices don’t happen every day. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.” He says this matter-of-factly and eases a leg through the window frame, casually, like he’s got all the time in the world.

  And he does. This is what sickens her most: recognizing that whatever time she has left belongs to him. She’s gripped by rage and yearns to run at him while he’s still, just staring at her like she’s a disease.

  But her breath forsakes her, chokes her.

  Don’t die this way, she tells herself. Don’t.

  He swings his other leg in so he’s sitting and facing her, the knife at his side.

  “Put that down.”

  She drops the candelabra. Not because she wants to obey him; because the lack of air has left her so weak that she falls to her knees.

  He pushes himself off the windowsill. His feet pound the floor. She feels the cabin shake and prays for the strength to run through walls.

  He stands in front of her, placing the tip of the long blade under the point of her chin. But she won’t raise her head. Her eyes are closed.

  “You messed with a lot of people, and you got away with it, but you don’t mess with me. You went too far when you did that, and now you have to pay. Do you understand?”

  She doesn’t reply. Keeps her eyes closed. It’s the only choice left to her: enter a darkness of her own volition. She feels the blade press harder into her chin.

  “This takes time,” he whispers. “It’s never fast. The commandments are clear.”

  The first cut opens her chin all the way up through her lips, leaving her gums bare and bloody.

  * * *

  Dafoe raced his old green and white pickup north on the New York State Thruway: He couldn’t get back to his farm fast enough. He’d called Forensia repeatedly, greeted only by “Please leave a message.” He’d finally reached his old friend and fellow dairyman, Jasper Fricke, who’d promised to get the cows milked and pastured. Now, while Dafoe steered with one hand, he rang him again.

  “She’s not here,” Jasper blurted out as soon as he picked up.

  “What about Bayou?”

  Long pause. “He’s not here, either. I’ve been moving so fast that I didn’t stop to think about him.”

  “He should be there. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Wait a second, Dafoe. I just walked up on your porch to get some shade and I don’t like what I’m seeing. There’s a blood smear right by the door. A good foot long.”

  “Jesus, call the sheriff. Forensia could be—”

  “There’s some muddy coyote tracks here, too, right near the blood.”

  “Coyotes?”

  “No mistaking them. Four or five sets. Christ, one of them left a calling card.”

  “Jasper, go into my mudroom and see if my varmint rifle’s in the closet.”

  “Okay.”

  It sounded like Jasper was rummaging in the closet.

  “Your varmint gun’s not here,” the man reported. “Definitely gone.”

  “Forensia must have grabbed it.” That’s good. More than likely it wasn’t her blood.

  “I’m back outside,” Jasper said. “I want to take a closer look at those tracks. I’m following them down the steps now. I can see Forensia’s footprints, too. The rain’s washed away a lot of them but it looks like she was taking big steps, moving fast.” Jasper grew up hunting and tracking like Dafoe.

  “How much blood did you see on the porch?”

  “Just that one smear. Know what I’m thinking, Dafoe? That—”

  “The coyotes got Bayou. He stopped them last week when those sons of bitches went after my calf; and now—first time my truck’s gone for more than a few minutes—they tried to get him so it could be open season on the herd. Forensia would have been hell on wheels if they were tearing up Bayou. You see his tracks anywhere?”

  “Nope.”

  “That figures if he got dragged off. You mind following Forensia’s prints as best you can? If she went after them, she could be in a lot more trouble than she counted on.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “You got your gun?” asked Dafoe.

  “Not with me.”

  “Take my pistol. Top shelf, kitchen cabinet by the stove.”

  “Hold on.” Dafoe heard Jasper walk back in the house. “It’s not there.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Look, I’m going anyway,” Fricke said.

  “I’m calling the sheriff.”

  * * *

  Ninety minutes later, Dafoe pulled up to his farmhouse. His recent cell phone calls to Jasper had gone unanswered and the lack of news was driving him nuts. The sun beat down harder than ever, a big red blister boiling in the sky. The herd was the only sign of life. The sheriff’s old Bronco was parked by the house, but the man was nowhere to be seen.

  Dafoe ran inside, hoping to find everyone settled in his big country kitchen where he’d first kissed Jenna. But the room was empty and his shouts raised no response. He saw Forensia’s capacious shoulder bag on the counter and hesitated briefly before poring through her stuff. He pulled her phone from the bag, confirming that she’d run off in a hurry. Or been dragged off. She always had that phone with her. A ring tone confused Dafoe until he realized that it came from his iPhone in his pocket, not Forensia’s cell, still in his hand.

  At a glance he saw that it was Jenna calling. He gave her an update, hung up, and ran out of the house. On the porch, he stared at the woods and brush where the coyotes skulked day and night, like barbarians on a border. He hated those sneaky four-legged thieves like only a farmer can.

  To his shock, three figures staggered from a distant thicket—Jasper and Sheriff Walker with Forensia between them. Jasper also cradled Bayou; the border collie hung limp as a November leaf.

  Dafoe raced across the parched land. Blood soaked Forensia’s hand to her elbow, and the coyotes must have ripped up her leg just above the knee because her jeans were torn and sodden with dark stains.

  “I’m sorry, Dafoe. I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “He’s not dead yet.” Jasper nodded at Bayou. The dog’s eyes were shut—one of them was crusted in blood—and he didn’t stir when Jasper handed him to his master.

  “I got you, boy.” Dafoe’s soothing tone belied an inner rage.

  “I just got here, but I’m sure he needs a vet, and this one needs an ER,” Sheriff Walker said. “She killed three of
them.”

  “I wish I’d killed all those fuckers,” Forensia cried. “They were trying to murder Bayou. I was getting coffee in the kitchen when he started barking and growling, and then he screamed a second later—I mean screamed. I grabbed your gun and ran outside. A coyote twice his size was dragging him off. I got the first two right then. It took a while but I got the big one down by the draw.”

  “Thank you” was all Dafoe could say. He felt Bayou’s heart beating. He knew a tough dog didn’t die easily, but Bayou had been chewed up and dragged a long ways.

  The sheriff drove Forensia to the hospital, while Dafoe rushed Bayou to the animal clinic. Dr. Pauline Berkley took one look at Bayou and had Dafoe carry him back to a stainless steel examining table.

  The tiny vet, who weighed less than the biggest dogs she treated, methodically palpated Bayou nose to tail, paying particular attention to his torn scrotum and bloody eye. She took even more time with his right leg; the fur had been stripped off all the way down to the foot, and the leg looked as raw as a hock in a butcher’s case.

  “I’ll X-ray him, but it’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t have at least one break in there.”

  “Coyote dragged him off.”

  Dr. Berkley was examining his other legs. “Dragged him off?” She shook her head. “He’s lucky he’s alive.”

  “Forensia saved him, got her pound of flesh, too: killed three of them.”

  “Forensia?” The vet glanced at him. “Miss Earth Woman?”

  “Yeah, she must have been something fierce. But Bayou’s one of her favorite things in the whole world.”

  “Love brings out the mama bear in all of us. Bayou’s lucky she was around. I’ve had four other dogs and five cats taken by coyotes in the last month. They’re getting super aggressive. It’s the drought: Everything’s drying up from one end of the food chain to the other.”

  She worked in silence for a few minutes. “Look, Dafoe, this guy’s going to lose a testicle, maybe both of them. I think his eye may heal but we won’t know for sure for another week or two. But what’s going to slow him way down, probably for good, is his leg. Even if it’s not broken, he’s got torn-up tendons and ligaments and some of his pad is missing. There’s no replacing that stuff. Border collies run on a lot of piss and vinegar, but he’ll need more than that to ever work again.”

  “Is this a nice way of asking if I want him put down?”

  “It’s as delicate as I can be.”

  “Save him. I don’t care what it costs.”

  “I can’t promise you that he’ll live. He could get sepsis and—”

  “Do it,” Dafoe interrupted. “Whatever you can.”

  Dr. Berkley shouted for her assistant, then turned back to Dafoe. “We’ve got to get started right now. You should wait outside.”

  “I’m going over to ER to see Forensia.”

  * * *

  A young doctor had just finished putting sixteen stitches into Forensia’s left forearm when Dafoe walked in. She had seven more in her leg.

  “You okay?” Dafoe asked her.

  The physician started to answer. Forensia cut him off: “I’m fine.”

  When Dafoe heard that she wasn’t about to let anyone, including a doctor, speak for her, he figured that she really was doing a lot better.

  The physician left them alone.

  “Christ, Dafoe, I really went insane when I saw those coyotes ripping up Bayou. I haven’t hunted since I turned vegan at fourteen, and there I was gunning them down. The biggest coyote took it personal and tore into me. I had to use your rifle like a club, and when I got him down I really went crazy. Beat him halfway to death before I thought to shoot him and put him out of his misery. It makes me wonder who the hell I really am.” She winced and shook her head as she finished, and he knew she needed reassurance.

  “The person who saved Bayou’s life, that’s who. They’re operating right now, and he’s got a good chance of making it, thanks to you.”

  Forensia burst into tears of joy and stood up, hugging him. Dafoe held her till she steadied. Then he helped her check out of the hospital, gather up her prescriptions, and get into his pickup.

  * * *

  Tears of rage came hours later, after Sang-mi hiked to a remote meditation cabin with a simple meal for GreenSpirit. She found the Wiccan leader murdered, mutilated, her body drenched in blood.

  Sheriff Walker rushed out there as soon as the breathless, hysterical Korean acolyte called 911.

  “A ritual murder, that’s what we’ve got,” the sheriff later told a large, tightly pressed crowd of journalists who’d raced up from the city. He described the lurid pentagrams that had been carved into GreenSpirit’s chest, cheeks, and belly, and promised a “full and complete investigation, no matter where the evidence leads.” The comment immediately sparked speculation that GreenSpirit’s vicious demise was linked to the one man who might have the most to gain by her silencing: presidential candidate Roger Lilton.

  But every witch and Pagan in the region feared that a witch hunt—in the most horrific sense of the words—had begun.

  CHAPTER 11

  The presidential palace gleamed white as sugar under the glaring sun, a promise of shade and drink amid marble and silk. A mere block away, Rick Birk, seventy-four-year-old investigative reporter, fanned himself furiously as his rickshaw driver made his way through the crowded streets. Despite his discomfort, Birk loved breaking out his tropical-weight safari suits—custom tailored with high collars to hide his sagging neck—for equatorial forays that reminded viewers he was still a dashing, war-torn foreign correspondent.

  Decades ago he’d draped his fit young frame in khaki every morning, and he could still wax nostalgic for the years when he wore his bwana garb to cover the Vietnam War for the Associated Press. Especially alluring were his deeply cherished memories of dropping his soft cotton drawers for nights soaked with gin and tonic and sex with a staggering array of Saigonese women. That’s if they were women. They were so goddamned teensy that it had been hard to tell in his nightly stupor, so Birk made a point of preserving his upright sense of self by never asking their age. Just grab two, three, four of them and go. Break out opium, hash, and Thai sticks, and share the smoke with his newest nubile friends. And then cavort for hours in petite fields of firm flesh. Ah, those were the days. Don’t let anybody kid you. Christ, he was glad to have been alive when you could wet your wick and not get sick. At least not with anything truly ghastly.

  His Vietnam reporting earned him a Pulitzer before he jumped the Good Ship Print for the greater fame of television, where he was lauded for possessing the pluck of Morley Safer, the unmitigated gall of Mike Wallace, and the sangfroid of Peter Jennings—all names that meant less and less with the passage of every hour in the fiercely burgeoning multimedia universe of the twenty-first century.

  Birk’s highest accolades had come decades ago. These days, he was even scorned in his own newsroom. No less than Jenna Withers could hang up on him with outrageous impunity. It helped to know that there had once been a much sweeter time when she would have done penance on her knees for that impropriety—or been out on her ass.

  Intimations of his glory days often crept up on Birk when he found himself, as he did this afternoon, on his way for drinks. Or as he preferred to call it, a “briefing from a high government official.” In this case, the Maldivian minister of defense.

  That these randomly cast, largely forgotten islands should even need a minister of defense would have struck the world as ludicrous, until the second terrorist bombing in a year tore apart a street no more than three blocks from where Birk ambled along … so slowly that he had to actively resist an urge to slip off his fine alligator belt and flog the little brown bugger hauling him along.

  No one but idiots was impressed with his television appearances these days. He ascribed this to the decline of “traditional media,” rather than his ravaged looks—the pits and craters from the removal of numerous precancerous skin growths. The
relentless sun, not his withered organ, had humbled him most visibly. In bad light, Birk looked pocked with shrapnel, and when he appeared on camera, he layered on more pancake than a drag queen with a five o’clock shadow.

  What with the toll of alcohol and the faulty scribes of memory, he honestly couldn’t recall the last time he’d been laid; and self-pleasuring—a miserable tonic for the palsied and lame—had been but a limp handshake for as long as he could remember.

  In the end, drink became his favorite friend, and the tang not of flesh but of Schweppes and Bombay gin all but came alive on his tongue a half block before he arrived at the palace gate.

  Amazing what anticipating a stiff one can do for you, how it can tease with a single imaginary scent. After all, look what poured out of Proust after tasting a simple madeleine. Birk figured the juniper flourish of gin might serve him equally well, if he ever picked up the pen again. He supposed he could give the world of letters a real boost, if he were of such a mind; they were in need of his reserves.

  Meanwhile, his driver, sweat spilling off his back in disgustingly swollen streams, brought the rickshaw to Birk’s destination. But the man had the ill grace to pant like a cart dog. A tip, a tip, that’s what he wants. Well, fuck me.

  Birk groaned loudly as he lifted his calcium-sapped bones from the thinly padded seat. He paid and even tipped handsomely, leaving the little native smiling. But then all those rickshaw drivers in Saigon had flashed rows of betel-stained teeth before blowing you straight to hell.

  “Rick Birk,” he announced dramatically in his sonorous voice at the palace gate, giving an imperious flick of his hand to the guard. His name ought to have guaranteed admission. But this slack-skinned brown man wasn’t impressed. Almost as bad, he wore what could plausibly have been a bunny suit. The one-piece design seemed more appropriate for toddler wear; it was the color of cheap Easter eggs and had epaulets as large and floppy as rabbit ears. The man raised his hand to keep Birk at bay. Then he entered a gaudily decorated guardhouse with a pink roof, turquoise door, and glass so old and heat-stricken it looked like it would shatter if you sneezed. Birk watched him place a call on a landline. After a few moments he nodded and hung up before returning to send Birk, without escort, to the towering porte cochere where another bunny-suited brown bugger opened the door to the palace’s impressively large reception room.