by Gary Jonas
“Any chance I can talk to your niece or her husband?”
“Knock yourself out,” he said and gestured to the boat. “Tony is the owner. He’s the one who looks like Michael Phelps.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said.
“No sweat.”
I stepped aboard the boat. Two little girls sat on the deck playing jacks. I didn’t even know they made those anymore. They’d bounce the little red ball and scoop up the little metal jacks. I remembered stepping on those when I was a kid and my little sister left them lying on the carpet. They were on par with stepping on Legos.
Tony sat in a chair wearing a red swimsuit. He had a crewcut, and in spite of what the cigar man said, he didn’t look much like Phelps. He was explaining some kind of network marketing opportunity to a middle-aged woman, who wore a white T-shirt and black shorts.
“It’s really good coffee,” he said. “Has an extract from a mushroom called Ganoderma. You gotta try it, Marge. It’s like a wonder drug. You got medical problems, this coffee can fix them for you. It’s all about this Ganoderma stuff, but I’m not supposed to make medical claims.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but are you Tony?” I asked.
He stopped talking, set down his beer and turned to face me. “Who’s asking?”
“Jon Easton,” I said, extending a hand. “I’m with Tall Tales Productions.”
“Never heard of it,” he said, but accepted the handshake. “Do you drink coffee?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you prefer black or do you like lattes?”
“Either, but can you answer a few questions for me?”
“Will you try a sample of my coffee and let me know what you think?”
“I’ll do you one better,” I said. “I’ll buy a box if you can help me out.”
“What can I do for you?”
I went through the spiel about the actors and the movie. “Did you happen to see them?”
“Damn right I did. They powered in here at three in the morning and woke us up. Couple of black guys and a chick who looked like that actress from the Princess Spy movies.”
“Meghan Woodley.”
“That’s her.”
“As a matter of fact it was her.”
“No shit?”
The middle-aged woman frowned. “Tony, the kids.”
“Sorry. No kidding?”
“No kidding. Did you see when they left?”
“The chick and one of the guys left right away. The other guy stayed on the boat for a while. I don’t know when he left, though. Had to be before seven because I went back to sleep and when I woke at seven, the boat was empty.”
“Thanks.”
“You filming a horror flick?”
“Why?”
“Because one of the guys had big teeth. Looked triangular and sharp, but it could have been the light.”
“And the girl?”
He shrugged. “I mostly noticed how she filled out her bikini.”
“Understood.”
“They were arguing about something, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.”
“Thanks. You’ve been very helpful.”
“You got a card? I can call you if they come back.”
“I’m all out of cards,” I said, “but I can write down my number.”
“Marge, you got a pen?” he asked.
“In my purse,” she said.
“While you dig that out, I’ll go get a box of coffee for our new friend here.”
He pushed away and went below deck.
I looked around at the other family members. They talked amongst themselves, or played on their phones. Most were drinking soda and eating sandwiches.
“Here we go,” Marge said.
I jotted down my number.
Tony returned with two boxes of instant coffee. One in a black box, one in a tan box. “Grabbed one of each so you can take your pick,” he said. He held up each box in turn. “Thirty sachets of black coffee or twenty of the cafe latte.”
“I’ll take both boxes,” I said.
“Excellent choice.”
I gave him some cash and he was all smiles.
“Thanks again, Tony,” I said accepting the two boxes of coffee.
“I’ll give you a buzz if I think of anything or see them again.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Oh, and take one of my cards in case you want some more coffee.”
He handed me a card. I thanked him again.
As I stepped off the boat, the cigar man laughed. “Always be selling,” he said.
“Hey, I can always use coffee,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“They’re still in Florida,” I said as I boarded the speedboat. “At least they were this morning.”
Kelly kicked back in one of the seats, and Esther stood on the bow of the boat. “I didn’t find anything here,” Kelly said.
“All right,” I said.
“Did you try reinstalling that app yet?”
“Not yet. I’ll try again in a bit. First, I want to know what else might be required for that ritual.”
“Gives you an excuse to call Brenda,” Kelly said.
“And how,” Esther said.
“True enough. Go ahead and get us an Uber back to the hotel.”
Kelly nodded and pulled out her phone.
I hopped back to the dock and walked farther out to get a bit of privacy, then called Brenda.
She answered on the third ring. “Hey, sexy man,” she said.
“Hey there, gorgeous. How are you holding up?”
“I’m sad about Angela, but I’m okay.”
“Yeah, I hate to bug you, but can we talk about what Terrell might be trying to accomplish now?”
“I’m sorry about earlier. I should have asked.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Your cousin died. Your focus was there, and that’s where it needed to be.”
“All right. Run it by me. What has he been doing?”
“I know it’s some kind of immortality ritual. Step one in just about every immortality ritual I’ve run across requires a literal death first, along with a resurrection. Then there are different ways to get power. Most of them are ongoing things. Every so often you have to drink the blood of an Englishman or something.”
“An Englishman?”
“Bad example. I was thinking smell the blood, but that wasn’t right, so I switched it.”
“I was going to say, I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“Drinking blood. The whole vampirism thing. A kind of immortality.”
“Sure, but vampires can drink just about any kind of blood and maintain themselves. Human blood is best, and gives them extra strength.”
“If vampires existed,” I said.
“They exist.”
“In movies.”
“In reality,” Brenda said. “But Terrell isn’t a vampire. Tell me what he’s done.”
“He died after getting hit with something from a hex bag, and I suspect that either he planted it himself or he had someone put it there for him.”
“So he had to get that from a witch.”
“Or he could have taken an innocuous hex bag like those Trudy passed out then added blood and a spell to it.”
“He’d need to know what he was doing to pull that off. So he was dead for nine days?”
“That’s right.”
“Normally, it’s three.”
“So he went three times that. His next step was to take teeth from a Great White shark.”
“A totem of power from an apex predator.”
“He inserted the teeth into his gums and they fused into his mouth.”
“Hang on. I’m going to put you on speaker.”
I paced along the dock and listened to her tap keys on a computer. When she spoke again, her voice sounded distant.
“I’ve got it, but either he skipped a step or you didn’t catch up to him soon enough.”
; “Fill me in,” I said.
She took me off speaker and her voice sounded clearer. “It’s definitely an immortality spell. He needed his own blood in the hex bag, then since the resurrection was so long coming, he needed blood from two people, one male, one female, and they had to come from accidental injuries.”
I thought back. Bill Dolan’s cut from a fight scene, and Meghan Woodley’s skinned knees from running and texting jumped to mind. “I can think of two, but now how he’d get the blood from them.”
“He wouldn’t need it then. He’d just need access to their injuries once he came back. Basically, he had to eat the scabs from their wounds.”
“Sounds delicious,” I said.
“Then he’d need the teeth from one apex predator, which he clearly got, and finally he’ll need the heart from another apex predator, and he’ll need it today.”
“What happens if he gets it?”
“Then he’ll be immortal unless he’s decapitated or has his body destroyed. A prolonged fire would do it. Put him through a meat grinder. Something like that. Of course, with the teeth and heart of other predators, he’ll have incredible strength. If he sustains major injuries, he’ll need blood from another predator, and after that, he’d still need booster shots of human blood every month or so because the scabs are from people.”
“All right,” I said. “He’s still in Florida. He got teeth from a shark. What other predator would work for the heart?”
“Has to be a reptile,” Brenda said.
I nodded. “Humans qualify as mammals, sharks are fish, so the third as a reptile makes sense. In that case, it almost has to be an alligator.”
“He’ll need to eat the heart from the reptile while it’s still alive.”
“So he has to wrestle an alligator.”
“He doesn’t have to. He could tranquilize one and eat the heart safely that way.”
“Oh, he’ll wrestle it,” I said. “He’s got issues.”
“Just to be clear, it doesn’t have to be an alligator. It could be a snake, but it would have to be a big one like a Burmese python or an anaconda. There have been eighteen foot snakes found in Florida, which is a good reason for me to stay in New York.”
“From tangling with this guy, I know he’ll want an alligator.”
“Does that mean you’re headed for the zoo or a reptile farm?”
“He’ll want a wild one. I’m betting he’s heading into the Everglades. What else is involved in the ritual?”
“That’s the final piece. If he gets the heart and eats it, he’ll be essentially immortal.”
“How bad is that? I mean, the guy was just a stuntman, right?”
“Terrell was a stuntman, but if he was dead for nine days, you know that’s not Terrell.”
“That’s what I figured. What is it then?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of entity. And if it’s after power, it’s not likely to be a good thing, is it?”
“In my experience, no.”
“So you have to stop it.”
“Consider it done,” I said. “And after that, I’ll come see you in New York.”
We chatted a bit more, but it was more about what we planned to do to one another when we got together again rather than anything to do with Terrell, so use your imagination.
Is that the best you’ve got? Trust me, it was raunchier than that. Probably illegal in most states.
I tried downloading the app again, and it gave me more errors, but finally installed. I pulled it up, entered the phone numbers I’d snagged from the iPad earlier, and kept my fingers crossed.
Sometimes lady luck smiles, and sometimes she laughs.
This time, it lit up the screen with a map, and the blip was near the Everglades.
I returned to the boat. Kelly jumped to the dock and Esther floated behind her. “Think that Uber driver will mind taking us to the Everglades?” I held up the phone to show where Meghan and Bill were headed.
“I think that with your bank account balance, you can have the driver take us anywhere.” Kelly checked the app on her phone. “She’ll be here in ten minutes.”
“Good. We have an entity of some sort to kill.”
“What kind of entity?” Kelly asked.
“No telling.”
“Might be wise to know what we’re up against so we can bring the right kind of weapons.”
“We’ll swing by the hotel and get your sword. I have a gun. Between those two things, we can handle just about anything.”
Kelly frowned. “Famous last words.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
This was my first trip to the Everglades, and I had no idea what to expect. I mean, sure, I knew I’d see the sawgrass everywhere, and the plethora of red mangroves, and the blue herons and other birds. I’d seen enough movies to know the water would run in canals and seep through everywhere but the higher ground. I even expected to see a few alligators.
Expectations can kick your ass and get you killed. You don’t anticipate someone walking up to you on a busy street to jam a gun against your head, and pull the trigger. But that can and does happen to people.
You don’t expect an oncoming car to swerve into your lane to cause a head-on collision. That can happen, too.
Kelly and I didn’t think anything was amiss when we got out of the Uber driver’s Ford Taurus. I didn’t even send Esther ahead of us because I knew from the GPS that Bill and Meghan were already out on one of the many canals a few miles away, so I also suspected Terrell would be with them.
The temperature hovered in the mid-nineties, and the clouds suggested approaching thunderstorms. We walked along the gravel parking lot where two pickup trucks and an old Thunderbird baked in the Florida heat. Two paths branched off from the lot. One led down to the dock where five airboats rocked gently in the water. The other led to a wooden country store that sold odds and ends along with hour long tours on the airboats.
“I’ll bet Terrell hired a boat to take them out in the glades,” I said.
“You should be a detective,” Kelly said.
We walked up the steps to the general store. An ice machine buzzed against the wall beside the door. Three rocking chairs sat in a row on the deck overlooking the dock, and a garish totem pole stood beyond them guarding the building.
I opened the door and we stepped inside. A bell rang as the door moved, and “Mammas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” by Waylon Jennings played on the radio.
Aisles ran down the center of the store, the shelves filled with snacks and fishing supplies. The back wall was lined with coolers filled with soda, milk, Gatorade, and beer. A doorway with plastic flaps led to the back room, while the far wall displayed racks of tourist T-shirts and hats. The front had a soda dispensary with cups, lids, condiments, and napkins in the corner. A glass case held hot dogs slowly spinning on rotisseries. The counter held the cash register and small stands of Doritos. The wall behind the counter held cigarettes and fishing paraphernalia.
No one stood there to greet us or to ring up sales.
Odd.
“I’ve never been on an airboat before,” I said.
“Ditto,” Kelly said.
“Where is everyone?” Esther asked.
“Maybe they’re in the back.”
I walked down an aisle with candy on one side and bags of chips on the other. A Gatorade sounded really good, so I snagged one from the cooler and carried it to the register. I set the drink on the counter and waited for Kelly to bring a bottle of water over. I took out my wallet, pulled out a ten dollar bill.
No one approached.
“Hello?” I called.
No answer.
“Hmm,” I said. “Maybe the clerk is in the restroom.”
“I’ll check in the back,” Esther said and drifted toward the back room. She returned a few moments later. “No one in the back, and the bathroom is empty.”
I tossed the ten onto the counter, but it slid too far and fell off the edge.
“Body,” I said.
The corpse of a middle-aged man had been stuffed into the cabinet. I crouched to get a better look. The man’s throat glistened where it had been ripped open.
“Kelly, we have a problem.”
Kelly moved around to look. “So it would seem.”
“Blood looks fresh, so this had to have happened in the last hour.”
Kelly drew her sword. “I’ll check outside,” she said, and moved through the door.
Waylon stopped singing, and George Strait took over to tell us “The Cowboy Rides Away.”
There was nothing I could do for the clerk, and if I called it in right now, I’d have to wait for the state police. He wasn’t going anywhere, but his killer was on the move.
“Sorry, man,” I whispered to the dead guy.
He didn’t have a response.
I stepped outside as Kelly hopped back onto the deck. “No one around,” she said, sheathing her sword.
The GPS app on my phone showed Bill and Meghan a little farther away.
“We need to go after them,” I said.
“How?”
“Airboat,” I said and headed toward the dock.
“Can you drive one of those things?”
“Can’t be that hard, right?”
I went to the airboat at the end so it would be easier to maneuver away from the dock. The flat bottom boat floated in about eighteen inches of water. I stepped from the dock to one of the bench seats. The boat rocked a bit. Kelly and Esther stepped aboard.
The driver’s seat stood on an elevated platform right in front of the massive propeller. A metal cage encircled the prop. I looked at the setup. It didn’t take much to figure out the controls. The key was in the ignition. I turned it on. I flipped the magneto and battery switches on the control board and pushed a black button. The aircraft engine coughed to life. I sat down and put my foot on the accelerator to give it some juice. The propeller whirled and buzzed. It was louder than an AC/DC concert. On the left, a stick controlled the rudder.