Shifting Silence

by Laura Bickle

  His lips peeled back on a snarl. He seemed like he had a lot of teeth crammed into his mouth. I would have thought that the wealthy Casimir would have been able to have some of those pulled, but maybe he liked the creepy effect.

  The ranger lifted his hand in a placating gesture at Voss. “No one is accusing Dr. Summerwood of foul play. If she had any intention of selling that animal, she wouldn’t have called us.”

  I nodded sharply. “I would never be involved in the illegal trafficking of animals.” I glared at him. “If I might have a word with the ranger?”

  “By all means,” he stomped off to the ranger’s Jeep, where he lit a cigarette and glowered at us from a distance.

  I looked at the ranger. “That guy is involved in some shady things, and I think he’s a suspect in an ongoing investigation with the Gibson County Sheriff’s Office. There have been some occult crimes, animal killings, and exotic animals involved.”

  The ranger’s gaze slipped from underneath his hat to Voss. “I agree that there’s something not right about this. His credentials checked out, but there’s something fishy about him.”

  “I think that Sheriff Sandy Niemec would very much like to have a word with him,” I said.

  “I think that can be arranged,” he said. “I’ll head over to the Sheriff’s Office to get a copy of that report and they can take a gander at this guy.”

  “Be careful,” I said. “I think he’s dangerous.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be in touch.”

  The ranger tipped his hat and moved off the porch. He crossed to the driver’s side of the Jeep, while Voss got in the passenger side. The ranger cranked the engine, and they crunched down the gravel road.

  My skin was crawling. That guy...I had to warn Sandy and her deputies. I jogged up the gravel driveway, past the mailbox, to the parked sheriff’s car. Something was weird about the car. The windows were rolled up, and water leaked in a stream from beneath the car, too much to be condensation from air conditioning.

  “Hey,” I said, knocking on the dirty passenger side window, trying to get the attention of the deputy who sat there, staring through his sunglasses at his phone.

  But he didn’t move.

  It took me a second to realize that the car was full of water.

  Dread pooling in my belly, I yanked open the car door. Water splashed all over my legs, nearly knocking me over. The whole interior of the car reeked of magic. I staggered back to the car to touch the guy’s neck.

  I couldn’t feel a pulse. He was dead.

  Tires squealed on gravel. Down the road, the Jeep swerved, as if there were a fight going on inside.

  I reached into the deputy’s gun belt and yanked out his gun. I had no idea how well it would work after being underwater, but I needed something to protect myself. I slammed my fingers to the radio, but it had shorted out.

  I looked up again to see a long-legged canine loping down the road, toward the Jeep. I recognized Renan in the shape of a maned wolf. Running as fast as he could, ears pinned back, he was gaining on the Jeep.

  I ran down the road. I couldn’t let Voss escape now. He knew where I lived, and he would surely see Renan alive now. If he told the rest of the Casimir, we were dead.

  The Jeep swerved and landed in the ditch, rolling onto its side in about two feet of standing water. Renan jumped onto the Jeep’s passenger door and growled, the hair standing up on his back.

  I aimed the gun at the Jeep and advanced slowly. “Come out with your hands up!” I ordered, trying to think of what Dalton would say.

  A thumping sound echoed inside the Jeep, sounding like a hammer. Something heavy struck the windshield, and the glass broke into a spiderweb of pieces before the busted sheet of safety glass was shoved out onto the hood.

  “Oh, shit,” I whispered as a crocodile crawled out over the hood of the Jeep.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Freeze!” I shouted, staring over the dead deputy’s gun.

  But the crocodile glared at me toothily. With shocking speed for such a chunky animal, it scrambled up the hood toward me.

  I pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  “Shit.”

  Renan jumped on the crocodile’s back, his teeth scrambling for purchase on the thick reptilian hide. The crocodile swept back and forth, shaking its head and tail, trying to dislodge the maned wolf. The scuffle pushed them off the Jeep and drew them into the mud of the ditch.

  As furious as he fought, I knew that Renan was no match for the crocodile. I had to find a way to help. I dove at the passenger door of the Jeep. I ripped it open and yelled for the ranger within.

  But he was going to be of no help. The interior of the Jeep was splashed with blood, and Ranger Perkins seemed to be doing his best to hold his guts in with both hands.

  “Your gun,” I gasped, and lunged for his belt.

  “What the fuck is happening?” he murmured weakly. “You gotta get away. You gotta—"

  I scrambled through the ruined windshield, gun aimed before me. Renan was holding on to the crocodile’s neck for dear life, while the croc started a barrel roll in the narrow ditch. Dirty water splashed all around them, and I had a hard time sighting the gun in on my target without risking hitting Renan.

  I slid down the hood of the Jeep and landed in the ditch, water up to my knees. The croc’s black eye emerged, and its jaws snapped toward me. I aimed at the croc’s head and pulled the trigger not once, but twice, three times...

  The crocodile flopped back into the water. Renan jumped to the bank panting, and the croc grew still as the roar of the gunfire receded.

  Shaking, I lowered the gun.

  “Will that do it?” I whispered. “Will that kill him, or will he heal?”

  Renan walked toward me. As he moved, I heard the crunch of his bones reorganizing, limbs lengthening. I stared in fascination, watching that red fur ripple over him and fade, twisting into the shape of a man.

  “I think he’s dead. And there’s no healing the dead,” Renan said, reaching for me. “Are you all right?”

  He rested a hand on my shoulder. I was sure that he could feel me trembling, but I nodded, blowing hair out of my face. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the croc—at that man. I turned back to the Jeep.

  Renan climbed in to check on the park ranger. He unbuckled the man’s seatbelt and pulled him out of the wreckage with effortless strength, laying him down on the gravel road. I could see that Perkins was unconscious. I applied pressure to his wounds while Renan found his radio to call for help.

  Irresistibly, my eyes were drawn toward the ditch. Where a crocodile had once lain, a man now floated, coated in mud. His head was a battered red pulp, leaking into the stagnant ditch water.

  I turned away, bile rising in my gut.

  I had killed a man. What Celeste said was true; we were locked in an ancient fight, and there was no way I could pull myself away from this war.

  “YOU CAN’T STAY HERE.”

  Sandy sat at the kitchen table, staring blearily into a cup of coffee Celeste had made for her. It looked as if she’d managed to get home, get a shower, and change her uniform. Her hair was still wet in its ponytail. The eye with the shiner had swollen shut, and she took a bag of frozen peas to apply to it at my insistence.

  “No,” Celeste said. “We’re not going anywhere.” She stood with her arms crossed, as immovable as any mountain.

  “Look, there’s some weird, violent shit going on here. Very weird shit.” Sandy rubbed her temple. “I don’t understand weird shit. But I understand violent shit, and some serious badasses have your number. They know where you live. Three men are dead. And it’s not safe for you to remain here.”

  “No,” Celeste reaffirmed.

  I sat with Renan at the kitchen table. We were both still coated with mud. Renan had been silent, though we’d had enough time to get our stories straight. I told the truth, for the most part: Renan had gone to chase the men, I’d found the deputy dead in the car. Vos
s had attacked the ranger, then turned on me. I shot him and told Sandy that I was aiming for a crocodile that had gotten mixed up in the mess.

  And that might land me in a whole world of hurt. The park ranger was in the hospital with blood loss and thoracic wounds. He’d come to once, screaming about crocodiles. For now, I was his rescuer. But the narrative could change, and taking a person’s life should never be without consequences.

  I stared into my tea in its frilly porcelain cup and pushed it away. I didn’t like how the leaves were settling in the bottom, curling with shadows. Bristol leaned against me, and I rubbed his ears, murmuring to him that he was a Very Good Dog.

  “There might be a rogue crocodile out here, for Chrissakes,” Sandy said, adding another spoonful of sugar to her coffee. “And I don’t know what the hell to think about that water in the car. Scott drowned. And I don’t know how. It all feels...”

  “Supernatural,” I said. Celeste shot me a warning look, but I plowed ahead, testing the waters. “This doesn’t seem natural. Those guys messing with black magic...what if it’s real?”

  Sandy shook her head. “Nope. Nope. All this shit has a logical explanation. I just haven’t figured it out yet. I am not about to start blaming Bigfoot for this shit.”

  My heart sank.

  Sandy’s radio chirped, and she answered it curtly. “What?”

  “Memorial Hospital reports that Dalton’s gone missing.”

  “What the hell?”

  I sucked in my breath.

  The dispatcher continued. “He disappeared on second shift rounds. Hospital security is looking for him.”

  I slid my hand over my mouth and muttered through my parted fingers. “Oh, no. They’ve found him and killed him.”

  Celeste came to me and wrapped her arms around me. She stroked my hair, the way she did when I was a little girl and afraid of the dark. Back then, she would always make me tea and tell me that everything was going to be all right.

  She didn’t do that this time. I think I knew it, too: everything was not going to be all right.

  Sandy left to round up the remaining deputies to search for Dalton. She left another car of deputies on the road; two rookies this time. I noticed that they kept a flashlight on in the car, the way children might leave a nightlight on. Celeste, Renan, and I were ordered to stay behind, over my objections.

  I showered and wrapped myself in leggings and a warm sweatshirt that had once belonged to Dalton. This was all my fault. I knew it. I had brought him into this mess. The mess should have been mine. Mine and Celeste’s. It belonged to no one else, and Dalton was paying the price.

  I wrapped my hair in a towel and went downstairs. Celeste was working with a map, dangling a pendulum above it, trying to find Dalton.

  “Any luck?” I asked. I’d given her something else that had belonged to Dalton to help: a pair of socks that he’d given me when I exclaimed that men’s socks were far superior to women’s. The socks were placed on each side of the county map while Celeste hunkered over it with an amethyst point on the end of a chain.

  She glanced up at me, and her lipsticked mouth turned down. “No, sweetie. The winds are quiet tonight. I will keep trying.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything, and headed to the barn to tend to the animals. I threw myself into the work, mucking out stalls by lantern light and taking Athena out of her cage to assess her progress.

  “Your wing’s improving,” I told her as I gently manipulated her wing.

  She glared at me. “Does that mean I can leave?”

  “Soon,” I said. “Soon, you’ll be back to catching live mice.”

  She flapped her good wing. “Frozen mice are disgusting.”

  “They’re all I have.” I felt queasy even at handling the dead feeder mice. I felt I’d been handling too much death. I wasn’t meant for this. I knew that I was supposed to be a healer, and I was failing. I was supposed to be preserving life, not killing men...no matter how evil they were, and no matter how much I didn’t intend for these awful things to happen to innocent people like Dalton and Aaron.

  I gently put Athena back into her cage. I sat on the floor and wept. I hadn’t cried this hard since my sisters left. The ache felt the same: the loss of family. Taffy, the skunk, curled up next to me and made a soft trilling noise.

  “Luna.”

  I looked over my shoulder. Renan was standing at the barn door. He was dressed in a freshly laundered T-shirt and jeans that had once belonged to Dalton. The T-shirt stretched over his abs in a very tantalizing way, and his wet hair glistened in the lamplight. He held my shotgun in his left hand. I had left it behind deliberately; I didn’t want any more guns.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  I scrubbed my sleeve across my face. “It’s okay. Really.” I climbed to my feet and busied myself with rearranging the horse feed buckets. Taffy scrambled off to work on the bag of cat food she’d opened.

  “Sandy is right. You should leave.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t leave this place.” I stroked Cyrus’s nose. “I can’t leave them. And Celeste and I can’t leave this land to the Casimir.”

  “That’s noble. But the animals could be boarded. You could...”

  “You know what’s funny? I always wanted to leave this place. See the world. Work for a world-class zoo.” I barked a bitter bit of laughter. “But I stayed here out of obligation. Maybe resignation. I don’t know. I couldn’t leave this alone.”

  “But is it worth your life?”

  “You, more than anyone, have seen what Silva can do. Do you want to give him any more power?”

  “No.” Renan stood with his hands in his pockets. “But I’m suggesting that you might be able to set a trap for him, one I could operate.”

  “Like what?” I laughed. “Like maybe I should stack some fertilizer bags together, let you strike a match, and blow the house up?” I was pretty sure that fertilizer was nowhere near as flammable as it was shown to be in the movies.

  He lifted one shoulder. “If it came to that.”

  I looked him full in the face, disbelieving. “You would do that?”

  He nodded. “I would. You saved my life. It’s only fair.”

  I shook my head. “No. You don’t have any ties here. If anyone should run, it should be you.”

  He approached me slowly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat. Everyone in my life left me. My mother, my sisters, Dalton...

  He folded me into his arms. I pressed my cheek against his chest and cried. It felt good to be able to let it out, for someone else to understand the depths of my loss, all I had lost, and what I stood to lose.

  I didn’t understand the weird connection I had with him, but it felt as real as anything else I’d experienced. More so, in some ways. I felt as if I’d always known him, and that was a patently ridiculous thought. But I needed that comfort now, even if it was in the arms of a virtual stranger. My message in a bottle spell had led to him. Whatever he was, I knew he was here to help.

  When the tears faded, Renan cupped my cheek in his warm hand. “We will get through this. We’ll find a way to fight them. There has to be a way.”

  I nodded, sniffling.

  A dull hum sounded outside, like an engine. I jerked my head up, toward the source of the sound.

  “The Casimir can’t be here already,” I gasped.

  I broke away from Renan, snatched up a pitchfork leaning against the wall, and rushed out of the barn.

  A small plane swept over the field, circled it. It was a two-seater Cessna, faintly outlined in twilight.

  I stopped in the center of the field to gaze up at it, heart pounding. Beside me, Renan lifted my shotgun and pumped it once.

  “No,” I said, pushing his arm down. “It’s not the Casimir.”

  The plane swept in for a landing, bouncing over the meadow, and bumped to a stop. The engine’s roar cut off, and the propellers began to slow. My heart lurched
into my throat. The two figures in the plane pulled their helmets off, revealing red hair like my mother’s. Like mine.

  “Who are they?” Renan asked.

  “My sisters,” I said, a flush rising in my face. “My sisters are here.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “What are you doing here?” I shouted above the ringing in my ears.

  Halley tucked her helmet under her arm and climbed down to the ground as easily as if she dismounted a horse. She’d cut her hair; it now brushed her jaw, and she was dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket. She hadn’t had her hair that short since her stint in the Air Force, but it suited her elfin features.

  “We came to help,” she said, wrapping me in an embrace.

  Starr, less accustomed to airplanes, clambered down gracelessly. Renan offered her a hand down. She made it to the ground, turned, and promptly vomited in the grass. She wiped her mouth, smearing her lipstick, and smiled weakly at me.

  “You didn’t think we were going to let you go to war alone, did you?” Starr looked the most like our mother, a full head shorter than me, with her hair in a long braid down her back. She’d managed to get a little barf on her embroidered peasant shirt.

  I wrapped my arms around her, my vision blurry. “You came. I can’t believe that you came.”

  Starr stood back, holding my right hand. Halley held the left.

  “It was time to come home,” Halley said, and Starr nodded.

  That void in my chest, that void I’d felt for decades, seemed to soften and fill.

  I wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

  “WE GOT YOUR MESSAGE.”

  Halley pushed a familiar-looking plastic gumball bubble across the kitchen table. “A hawk dropped this off on the tarmac in Kansas City. I opened it and knew it had to be from you.”

  Starr placed a perfume vial on end in front of me. “I was eating lunch in the park, and a pigeon dropped this in my salad.”

  Bristol’s nose sneaked up to the table and snooted the vial. He made a face. He could probably smell whatever fragrance I hadn’t been able to rinse out. I was shocked at how powerful Belinda’s cookbook had been. Clearly, she knew her stuff.