Black To Dust_A Quentin Black Paranormal Mystery

by JC Andrijeski

Even so, something about him set off my radar, almost from the second he walked into the room. He stared me straight in the eye, his expression unflinching, weirdly vacant on some level, yet also unapologetically hostile.

  Purely physically, he could have been one of my cousins. His raven black hair hung shaggy and long. His dark-brown eyes stood out in a round, tanned face that wore a somber expression. That expression also felt and looked somehow too old for his body.

  He was slightly overweight, but no more so than a lot of the kids I saw his age anywhere else in the country. He wore a tight T-shirt with horizontal blue and black stripes, dusty blue jeans, gray tennis shoes without socks and a silver chain necklace with a turquoise pendant of a howling wolf’s head.

  I couldn’t help looking at the wolf’s head, wondering if his parents knew he wore it.

  I wondered if they’d thought about what it meant, if they did know.

  “Jason,” I said, leaning back. “Do you still talk to Wolf now?”

  The boy copied my pose, leaned back in his chair. Unlike me, he also folded his arms.

  A faint smirk appeared on his lips.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “That’s why I asked.”

  His smirk widened.

  Holding his gaze, I went on in the same voice, not reacting to his contemptuous look.

  “Your parents and family think you haven’t talked to him,” I said. “Your sisters say that, your cousins. Your teachers think you couldn’t have talked to him, either.”

  The boy still didn’t speak.

  After another beat, I added,

  “Your friends all say you have talked to him, though. They say you talk to him still, that you never stopped talking to him. They tell me Wolf speaks to all of his children in their dreams. They say he is teaching you, readying you to take back the Navajo lands. He is teaching you how to educate your brothers and sisters, your classmates, your cousins, your parents.”

  The boy folded his arms tighter over his chest.

  As he did, his energy threw up a wall.

  I doubt he had any conscious awareness he’d done it, but it was surprisingly effective at keeping me out. I could feel Wolf’s presence behind that, but I felt the boy’s will behind it, too––his loyalty to Wolf, his corresponding unwillingness to share anything with me.

  The combination brought a hard, stubborn closing to his living light.

  “They wouldn’t tell you that,” the boy said, his voice cold. “Wolf’s people. Any of us. We would never tell you something like that. Never.”

  Craning his head and neck around, he stared hard at Black.

  After a long-feeling silence where they only looked at one another, the boy turned back towards me. His eyes held an open hostility as he jerked his chin, indicating where Black stood.

  “He told you,” the boy said, that coldness still in his eyes. “He told you what was in their minds. They didn’t tell you anything.”

  Pursing my lips, I projected puzzlement.

  “What’s in their minds?” I glanced at Black, then back at the boy. “What makes you think he could do that? How could he tell me what’s in their minds?”

  The boy only smirked, that eerie coldness still reflected in his dark eyes.

  Looking at him, I flashed back to the way Birdie looked at me from the other side of that table up at White Rock. There was a similarity there, and one I recognized from work I’d done in the past, specifically with a new age cult Nick brought in for questioning once, related to their involvement in at least two murders in San Francisco.

  There was a definite similarity here, in terms of their contempt for outsiders, the implication they simply “knew more” than ordinary people, and the closed nature of their minds. It was like they feared letting anything in that might threaten that certainty, or the ideology that gave it form. Since the cult in San Francisco happened to be a group that prided themselves on their psychic abilities, I couldn’t help but find their feeble attempts to read me, and their contempt for my “lack of vision” kind of humorous.

  Well, apart from the fact that some of them were actual murderers.

  Nick got them in the end. I didn’t even have to help him all that much. All I really did was tell him where the bodies were buried––literally, in that case.

  From behind me, I felt a pulse of amusement off Black.

  I glanced over my shoulder at him, lifting an eyebrow.

  He stood at the front of the classroom by the blackboard, arms folded across his broad chest as he watched me attempt to question Jason, the nine-year-old cultist.

  Other than shifting his weight periodically, and once walking over to turn on the overhead fans––probably because he felt me getting too hot from the sun-heated air wafting through the open windows––he hadn’t moved from that spot.

  What do you think? I asked him. Should we keep going? Or should I wrap this up?

  Sighing internally, I looked back at the boy, Jason.

  It doesn’t feel like we’re getting anywhere, I admitted. I’m not seeing much in terms of Wolf’s specific plans. I’ve gotten more insight into their ideology, but I’m not sure how useful that is at this point. They don’t seem to know much about the vampires, or the “door” around Ship Rock. To the kids, the vampires just appear out of thin air, a gift from the gods.

  I glanced at Black a second time.

  Unless you’re picking up more from these kids than I am, we might have gotten as much as we can for now. They all seem vaguely murderous. They all seem completely bought in. I’m not sensing a lot of differentiation in the belief pattern at this point. Are you?

  Black’s eyes flickered towards the boy’s face, his expression unmoving.

  Not really, doc, he sent neutrally. Maybe finish this one up, and we’ll regroup at Manny’s. Get something to eat.

  He paused, and I felt a faint flicker of heat from his light, one he was clearly trying to hide, along with a few images that brought a warmer flush to my face.

  Maybe we could take a nap, he added. Neither of us really slept last night.

  I grunted, but didn’t bother to comment.

  From what I felt off Black’s light, we wouldn’t be doing much sleeping in that scenario.

  Maybe not, he admitted. But I would like to talk to you. I’d like to talk to Manny, too.

  I glanced over that time, frowning, and he met my gaze.

  Your uncle’s gone radio silent. It’s probably nothing, but it’s a little strange, given how adamant he was that I stay on the line.

  Shrugging off my frown, he added,

  Also, it happened right after he told me they’d reached the bluff area, where Red’s people were yesterday. I got a pretty solid hit there yesterday. They said they checked right where I told them and found nothing, not even horse tracks. But I know what I felt.

  His gaze sharpened, even as it turned inward.

  Red’s team joked that maybe Wolf turned into an actual wolf, or a raven… but whatever tricks Wolf has up his sleeve, they were able to track him before, after he was at Manny’s house that night. They may have lost him in the end, but he didn’t turn into a fucking bird.

  Still frowning faintly, he added,

  Even if Wolf has seers working for him to shield or bounce his Barrier signature, or if he’s got his pet vampires blocking his light, he can’t hide himself entirely. He was definitely on that bluff. I felt him watching us with binoculars. He had his wolves with him, and at least a handful of other humans. No vampires that I felt, but I may not have felt them. It was the middle of the day though, and I definitely get the sense these “new” vampires are a lot more sensitive to the sun than the local variety.

  I struggled a bit to follow the different pathways his mind was going down.

  In the end, I fixated on one point over the others.

  You’ve been talking to him? I sent, frowning. Charles?

  Black hadn’t left the classroom once. I also hadn
’t heard him talk to anyone. He’d spoken to me solely in my mind since we’d first been led in here by Elsie Natani.

  This thing has sub-vocals, Black sent back, tapping his ear. It’s an organic, like the gun. It’s also more advanced than any of the experimental tech I’ve gotten from the Colonel in the last few years.

  Pausing, he added, They had stuff similar to this on Old Earth.

  I felt his frown around that thought, and frowned with him.

  He was right. I needed to know more about this tech.

  If nothing else, I needed to know more about why it bothered him so much.

  But we couldn’t talk about that now, not with Jason sitting in front of me. We’d already been talking for too long, especially given what Jason just accused Black of being.

  I’d interviewed eight of the children labeled “Wolf Children” by the town’s adults, and Jason was the first to accuse either of us of having psychic abilities. He was the first to do much more than notice Black in passing where he stood by the blackboard.

  Truthfully, while we picked up a few things from these kids, mainly through reading them versus anything they’d come out and said, most of what we’d learned wasn’t all that useful. The most interesting thing probably lay in the kids’ belief that Wolf could communicate with them––possibly even psychically––via their dreams.

  Other than that, the interviews didn’t feel like they’d borne much fruit, in terms of telling us what Wolf had planned, or where he might be now.

  I’d never been all that great with kids anyway––from a clinical perspective, I mean.

  It wasn’t an area I’d specialized in, or knew much about, apart from my undergraduate coursework. Even my personal background wasn’t much help. I had no nieces or nephews. Few of my close adult friends had kids. I hadn’t seen my young cousins in years.

  Moreover, I’d been a hyper-serious kid, one of those children who never fully embraced childhood, so I couldn’t even recall my own memories to help me.

  As a result, I approached these interviews more as a seer than a psychologist, trying to use questions to draw their minds to the right subjects so Black and I could read them.

  Most of what I’d picked up off Jason related to apocalyptic takes on Navajo mythology mixed with beliefs about Wolf himself, many of which were pretty fanatical, not to mention fantastical. All the children I’d interviewed so far displayed more or less identical attitudes towards me and Black, although Jason was on the aggressive end of that spectrum.

  I knew it was an attitude the Wolf Children likely aimed at anyone who wasn’t part of their pack, but the consistency of it was unnerving. To say it was difficult to reach them through that programming would be an understatement.

  Leaning back in my chair, I kept my hands on the wooden desk.

  Gauging the boy’s face, I decided to approach him more directly.

  “Wolf is responsible for the death of at least four of your classmates,” I reminded him, my tone shifting into that of adult to adult. “Ruby James. May Walker. Lucy Ontaka. Tsidi Blackfoot. Others of your classmates have disappeared, and are presumed to be dead, likely at Wolf’s hands. Most of them followed Wolf. They were loyal to Wolf, just like you are.”

  I paused.

  “Doesn’t that bother you, Jason?”

  The boy frowned, just before his dark eyes met mine.

  That time, a more sullen, childlike hostility shone there.

  I saw his irises darken a few shades as he continued to assess me, and in that, I felt Wolf again. Jason’s gaze grew increasingly hostile the longer the silence stretched. His light flickered with a kind of annoyed frustration, like he thought I’d just tricked him.

  “That was an accident,” he said, his voice as sullen as his expression.

  “An accident.” I held his gaze, frowning as I let him see my skepticism. “You seem very sure about that. Is that what Wolf told you to think?”

  “I didn’t need Wolf to tell me that,” the boy said, his voice a warning. “I am sure. It was an accident. Wolf hadn’t trained them yet.” He folded his arms, and that smirk slowly returned. “He’s gotten better with them, though. A lot better.”

  I heard the implied threat there.

  I only held his gaze, my expression unmoving.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, clearly annoyed by my indifference to his boast about the vampires. “You’ll see, though. You’ll know what I mean, soon enough.”

  Leaning over the wooden desk, I stared the boy right in the face.

  “You can’t train vampires, Jason,” I said. “Vampires kill people. That’s what they do. They eat human beings. That means they eat Navajo. That means they eat white people. They don’t care what kind of human being you are. We are all food to them. All of us. You. Me. Him.”

  I motioned over my shoulder at Black.

  Jason followed the motion of my hand, staring at Black where he stood between the door to the classroom and the blackboard.

  He was still staring when he made a disbelieving noise, rolling his eyes.

  “He’s not human,” he said, his voice cold.

  I stiffened, but the boy’s eyes never left Black.

  Still staring, he added in a more hostile voice,

  “He’s a ghost. He brought those other ghosts here, just like Wolf said he would. Ghosts bring death with them. It’s what they do.”

  I frowned, glancing over my shoulder at Black.

  At his deadpan expression, I returned my gaze to Jason.

  “What do you mean he’s a ghost?” I said. “He’s clearly not a ghost. He’s standing right there. He can touch you. You can touch him. He’s real.”

  The boy smirked at me, folding his arms. “He might look real to you, but I can see what he is. Only dead men can kill ghosts. Wolf is smarter than you are. He can speak to the wind. He can speak to the dead. He has the gods on his side.”

  Jason’s dark eyes grew colder.

  “Why are you with this ghost?” he said, motioning at Black contemptuously. “You are like us. You should be with us. We are your kin.”

  Frowning, now slightly alarmed by how adult he sounded, I shook my head.

  “I’m like him too,” I told the boy. “If he’s a ghost, then so am I.”

  He grunted. “No. You’re not. You’re like us. Not Navajo, but you’re native. NDN.”

  “I am half like you, half like him,” I said, my voice firm. “I’m half what he is. Half NDN. I had one parent of each.”

  The boy laughed.

  Glaring at Black in the corner of the room, he looked away to meet my gaze.

  “Ghosts can’t make babies,” he said, his voice contemptuous in his knowledge. “You have forgotten where you come from. You have forgotten what you are. It will get you killed. Along with the ghosts. Along with the white men.”

  He motioned at me again, his voice too old for his round face.

  “You should go to the gods… ask them for forgiveness. Ask them for absolution, along with all the others of our tribe who have grown fat and lazy in this white man’s paddock. Why do you think Wolf came to us? Why do you think he started with the children? Why do you think he told us his truth, instead of the leaders of our tribe?”

  The boy made another sound of contempt.

  “You are all fat. Complacent. Asleep.”

  Still frowning, I studied Jason’s face.

  I still wasn’t getting much off his light, other than the fact that he absolutely meant every word. He really thought some kind of apocalypse was coming, one that would apparently wipe out the natives who weren’t ideologically pure, along with the white people.

  “There will be few of us left,” I told Jason. “If you and Wolf and the rest of your group kill all of the Navajo… and all of the other natives you don’t agree with, like me… there won’t be many of us left.”

  Jason smirked.

  “We won’t kill you,” he said. “We will educate you. We will wake you up, sister, in whatever way
we have to… until you understand and accept the responsibility of being what you are. Until you remember your blood and your land.”

  His eyes shifted, staring up and around me.

  He focused on Black with sheer loathing in his dark eyes.

  “We will kill him. He doesn’t belong here.”

  I flinched, unable to help reacting to the hatred in his voice.

  “Why would you kill him and not me?” I frowned. “Neither of us are from here. I’ve already told you I share blood with him. And he came here to help the Navajo… not to hurt them. His friend invited him here. His Navajo friend.”

  “He doesn’t belong here,” the boy repeated, even more contemptuously. “He belongs here even less than the white man. Wolf showed us. He showed us how they came through the door of light. They came here like thieves to steal our land…” He glared at me. “…and our women. He must be sent back. As a warning to the others. We will cut his throat and throw him back through the door. So the others know not to follow.”

  I winced at the image that came to the boy’s mind.

  Before I could respond, Jason’s lips stretched back into that sideways smirk.

  “We will send him to the land of the dead. The dead know how to deal with a ghost.” He aimed his glare at Black. “We will send all of them back. Then you will see. Their spell over you will be broken, sister, and you will return to your own people. Your real people.”

  Frowning harder, I could only stare at the boy.

  Then I slowly turned my head, looking for Black’s reaction to all of this.

  Black didn’t return my gaze, though.

  His eyes shone with a clinical, cold-seeming interest, focused solely on Jason. The gold of his irises glowed from the shadowed corner of the room, blurred faintly from reading something he saw in the boy’s light, his mouth set in a hard line.

  He looked positively predatory.

  Unfortunately, he also looked utterly alien. Everything about him right then probably only confirmed to the boy what he’d just said to me.

  Whatever the kid said, Black didn’t look like a ghost, though.

  Truthfully, he looked like a giant cat, ready to leap.

  I was still watching his face when the boy laughed, bringing my eyes back to him.