by Sam Witt
“I don’t know if you’re aware,” the sheriff said, “but things are changing around here. The rules aren’t what they used to be.”
There was a trap waiting to be sprung. Joe could feel it in the conversation, its barbs hidden beneath the sheriff’s words. He hadn’t seen her since coming back from Ladue, hadn’t talked to her since the whole dustup with Amogen a few months before. She seemed different now, less straightforward. There was a cunning menace to her that he hadn’t seen before.
The radio hanging from her chest squawked, breaking the silence with a burst of static. The sheriff tilted her head and gave Joe a broad grin. She pulled the mic away from its magnetic post and handed it to Joe. “I’m pretty sure this is for you.”
Joe stared at the mic like the sheriff was giving him a pissed-off copperhead. He recognized that look in her eyes, and his heart sank. He took the microphone. “Joe here.”
“Thank you so much for taking my call,” the familiar voice said, clawing its way through the radio static. “It had been so long I thought you might’ve forgotten about your duty to me.”
A lightning stroke of pain splintered across the back of Joe’s brain. He winced and clenched the receiver so hard it creaked between his fingers. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.”
The Long Man’s laugh, somewhere between a hyena’s scream and breaking glass, exploded from the receiver. “Why don’t you come up to the Lodge, and we’ll have ourselves a drink?”
Joe felt sick with rage. How could he have missed this? He’d thought the sheriff had been willfully ignorant about the supernatural side of Pitchfork. But she’d been on the inside all along, working with the Long Man. Everything he thought he’d known was crumbling around his ears. “I don’t drink anymore.”
An intense pressure encircled Joe’s chest. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even think, as the Long Man’s authority clenched around him. “You’ve forgotten your manners, Jonah. So let me make this clear. Get your ass to the Black Lodge. Now.”
The sheriff widened her eyes in mock surprise. “Oh, that’s a twist you didn’t see coming.”
Joe glared at her, but he was too weak from the Long Man’s attack to do much more than think ugly thoughts at her.
The sheriff plucked the receiver from Joe’s nerveless fingers and returned it to the magnetic post on her chest. “You better get going,” she said through a fake smile. “He really hates to be kept waiting.”
12
Joe dug a near-empty bottle of aspirin from the truck’s glove box and dry swallowed three of them. His head felt like someone had hammered a crown of ten-penny nails into it, a feeling he was afraid he was going to have to get used to. Every time the Long Man took a swipe at him, it was like waking up from a week-long bender. The hangover from the attacks was almost as bad as the attacks themselves, and Joe wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to withstand them. “I’ve got an errand to run,” he said to Al. “Can you get back to the house on your own?”
Al laughed, and Joe noted how much it sounded like a bark. The fight had brought out something dark and feral in Al. “I think I’ll manage.”
Joe watched his son hop out of the cab and jog away. The boy’s long strides carried him out of sight faster than Joe would’ve imagined possible. Even when he wasn’t transformed, Al was quicker and stronger than anyone Joe had ever known. He wondered what price his son would pay for those abilities. The supernatural never gave anything for free.
To Joe’s relief, the truck turned over on the first crank. “Fucking spiders,” he snarled and shoved the stick into gear.
The aspirin chewed the edges off of his headache but left behind a dull burning in his gut. He wondered how many ulcers he had, how much longer he had before the stress and rigors of his job laid him out. His old man had barely made it to fifty, and Joe was less than a decade from that number himself. As he drove up to the Black Lodge, he couldn’t help but wonder just how quickly the sands were running out of his hourglass.
He didn’t knock, just kicked open the Black Lodge’s door and stomped inside. He found the Long Man waiting for him in the sitting room, a glass of amber liquor in his right hand. “The prodigal returns,” the Long Man quipped.
Joe swung his arm forward and tossed the decaying remains of spider from the back of his truck at the Long Man. The carcass, mostly rotted down to rancid slime, slid across the smooth wood floor, leaving a smear of green ichor in its wake. “We’ve got a problem.”
The Long Man took a drink and glanced down at the dead monster at his feet. “It looks like you have a problem. And it sounds like you’re trying to bring it into my house.”
Joe did his best to keep his cool. While he knew things were bad with his boss, he hadn’t realized just how far things had fallen. Joe didn’t want a pair of monsters at war inside his head. He didn’t like the Long Man, and he sure as hell didn’t trust him, but he did want to work with him. At least until things settled down in Pitchfork. There wasn’t any point in rocking the boat when there was another supernatural heavy hitter making inroads to the county. “Whatever this is, it’s not out just for me. It thinks it has some claim on Pitchfork.”
The Long Man took another drink, shrugged. “I’m not sure what you think I can do for you. You stole the biggest chunk of my power, and you’re holding it hostage.”
Joe didn’t believe he had most of the Long Man’s power, not by a long shot. The old bastard no longer looked as if he was on death’s door. There was an unnatural warmth to skin that had been recently waxy, and a feverish light gleamed behind black eyes. Somehow, the Long Man had regained his strength. “Then maybe you can just knock off trying to kill me while I’m dealing with this thing.”
A faint smirk quirked the edges of the Long Man’s lips. Joe felt the first tremors of an attack slinking through the shadows at the back of his brain and braced himself for the onslaught. The Long Man’s grin grew wider, and the old bastard chuckled. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would I risk endangering you? While you have certainly gone out of your way to show that our oath means nothing to you, it still binds us together. If you die, you’ll take the part of me that you’ve held hostage with you. What makes you think I’m willing to risk that?”
Joe tried to measure the truth of the Long Man’s words. There was no denying the two of them were tied together. Joe could feel the Long Man’s presence at the back of his brain, and the power of the Night Marshal’s office was still there. His boss fought him for every inch of their journey together, but they were still together. For better or worse. “If we don’t work together, this thing’s going to burn both our asses.”
The Long Man drained his drink and flicked his fingers. The glass vanished, disappearing into the ether with a faint pop. “I’d love to help you. All you have to do is return what you stole from me.”
Joe ground his teeth. At this point, he wouldn’t even mind giving the old bastard’s power back to him. But if he relinquished that strength, the Haunter in Darkness would tear Joe apart. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”
The Long Man released a dramatic sigh through his thin lips. “It’s a shame that we couldn’t come to some reconciliation. But as long as you hold my strength, I have nothing to give you.”
“At least give Laralaine permission to work with me. Right now she’s intent on running interference, and we don’t have time to be playing those games.”
The Long Man curled his hands together and rested them on his knee. “I have less control over her than I do over you. Even if I commanded her to put her resources at your disposal, there’s every chance she would put a bullet in the back of your head the first time the opportunity arose.”
Joe wanted to shoot something. He hadn’t expected to be met with open arms, but he had expected the for the Long Man to have some sense of self-preservation. He dug through his satchel and pulled out the stele. “Maybe you can make some sense out of this,” Joe said as he unfurled the
silken sheet and held it before the crackling fire in the hearth. “My sources tell me this is some sort of claim of ownership. A territory marker.”
The Long Man’s face became a still mask. “Have you ever wondered, I mean really wondered, what’s happening here? You fight me because you fear my desire to rule. But have you ever wondered what would rule in my stead should you dispose of me?”
Joe snorted. “I ever knock you off your throne, I’m not going to let some other motherfucker just crawl right back up onto it.”
The Long Man stood and walked toward Joe and the fireplace. He gestured back to his enormous chair. “Perhaps you would like to take a seat.”
Joe’s eyes drifted toward the twisted throne of their own accord. “I never wanted to rule. I don’t want your power. But I’ll be damned if I let anybody else take it, either.”
The Long Man bent at the waist to get a better look at the stele. “Power unleashed is worse than any tyrant. If you kill me, something else will come to take my place. If you kill that, there will be another. And another after that. Power cries out to be mastered. It craves the leash.”
“So you’re not going to help me. Fine. But I’m not going to sit here and listen to you try and convince the two of us that you’re what’s best for Pitchfork. If you don’t help me, just stay the fuck out of my way.”
The Long Man straightened and rested his elbow on the mantle. He stared into Joe’s eyes, and all trace of humor was gone. For a moment, Joe could see something real in the monster’s stare. It wasn’t fear; it was dread. Whatever was happening, the Long Man wasn’t looking forward to it. “If you think you can do this without me, you are sadly mistaken. All of this, all of these monsters and their masters, are just pieces on a game board you cannot even imagine. Have you considered that I oppose you, not because I am evil, but because you are wrong?”
The words rattled Joe’s cage because he was almost sure that the Long Man at least thought he was telling the truth. There was always a chance that the things Joe did, that the monsters he killed, only fueled the supernatural fires that threatened to consume Pitchfork. But in all his years, the one truth Joe had clung to was that he did what he did not because he wanted to, but because he felt he had to. His motives were the only ones he could trust because he knew he wasn’t trying to gain anything for himself. Joe did what his father before him had done: He found the monsters, and he killed them. “Nothing would be easier than for me to fall back in line. It would be so simple to go back to letting you call the shots. I didn’t have to think or worry so much when I was a drunk attack dog that carried out your orders. But that line of thinking just about cost me everything.”
A dull, crystalline chime rang through the quiet between them. Joe felt the wind shift around him as a pair of shot glasses appeared on the mantle. The one nearest him was filled with clear water so cold it frosted the glass. The Long Man lifted the one nearest himself, filled with what appeared to Joe’s finely tuned alcoholic senses to be expensive whiskey and tilted it toward Joe. “See how refreshing honesty can be? Now we both know where we stand.”
Joe snatched his shot glass off the mantle and tossed the water down his throat. It was so pure it had no taste, and he was only sure there had been anything in the glass at all because of the cold weight it left in his gut. This wasn’t what he wanted, but he supposed it was what it had always had to be. Joe wasn’t looking forward to the coming days, but he at least knew where he stood with the Long Man. “It didn’t have to be this way,” Joe started. The Long Man cut him off with a wave of his hand.
“We both know that’s not true. I think we’ve both known this day was coming for a long time.”
There was nothing left to say. Joe had come hoping to mend fences but instead had been witness to the burning of the last bridge between himself and the Long Man.
He was almost to the door when the Long Man’s voice reached him. “Be careful out there, Jonah. It would be a shame if you had one of those spells of yours at an inopportune time.”
Joe turned on one heel and tilted his hat toward the Long Man. “See? You really do care.”
“You know I worry what will happen to me if you die. I stand to lose so much. Have you considered what might happen to you if I were to die?”
Joe snorted. “I know I’ll rest easier at night once you’re gone. Or did you have something else in mind?”
“It is going to be so boring around here when you’re gone. I almost wish you were going to survive this.”
Joe left the Black Lodge and tried to ignore the Long Man’s laughter ringing in his ears.
13
Al found his sister and mother at the kitchen table. They each had a plate of barbecue ribs in front of them, and Elsa had reduced most of hers to clean white bones. Their faces were smeared with sticky red sauce, and their hands looked like they'd been digging in someone's guts. They grinned at him, and his mother motioned for him to pull up a seat.
"You can have the rest of mine," she said and pushed her plate toward Al. "I can't keep up with your sister anymore. I'm going to enter her into one of those hot dog eating contests at the fair."
Al winked at his little sister and slid the plate in front of her. He tried to hide his disgust at the thought of eating food that’d been charred over a fire and slathered with enough spice to mask its natural taste. "I already ate."
He could feel his mother's eyes on him, and Al tried to ignore her probing stare. He hadn't been back to the house in weeks, and most of that time he'd been living with one of the young witches in his mother's coven. "At least she's feeding you."
"Don't be mad at Rae," Al said. "You're the one who sent me over there to take care of her while she recovered."
He could see the anger in his mother's eyes, the shadowy flare of rage that reared up whenever she was challenged. In truth, that was one of the reasons Al spent less time at home these days. He was the leader of his own pack, and bending a knee to anyone, including his own mother, wore on his nerves. It was best if they gave each other a little space.
He was relieved when Stevie grabbed his face with her greasy hands and pulled him forward for a messy kiss on the cheek. "I'm just glad my boy's home," she said as she smeared barbecue sauce from his ear to his chin.
Elsa shrieked with laughter. She swallowed a bite of pork and jabbed the naked bone at Al. "You look gross. Like you've been eating roadkill."
He pushed back from the table and went to the sink to wash his face. "I don't eat roadkill," he said over his shoulder. "I eat little girls."
Elsa laughed again and devoured another rib.
Stevie turned in her chair and brushed her ponytail back over her shoulder. "What made you decide to pay your dear old mama a visit?"
"I heard there've been some problems. Figured I might be able to help."
A shadow passed over Stevie's face.
Her disappointment stung Al, and he wished he'd come to visit more often. Avoiding his mother because of the awkwardness between them was the easy way out, but he could see now what it would cost them if he kept that up.
"Are you sure you're ready for that?" Stevie's gaze grew more intense as she measured Al. They’d all suffered during the battle at Ladue, and Stevie had a sneaking suspicion that Al had been in scrapes even more recently. He looked tired and too thin, worn threadbare by pressures and cares a boy his age shouldn’t have to consider. A man his age, she corrected herself. Al wasn’t a kid anymore.
He returned to his chair and flopped down with his arms crossed over his belly. "I don't think it matters much if I am ready or not. I went over to Trevor's with the old man, and it looks like this is going to be quite a mess."
Stevie sipped from her plastic tumbler of iced tea. "Sounds familiar. What did Trevor have to say?"
Al glanced at Elsa then back to his mother. She shrugged in response. In some ways, despite Elsa's youth, she was the most resilient of them all. Her gift gave her a longer view of the world and seemed to have completely
removed her fear of death.
It also made keeping secrets from her almost impossible. The dead loved Elsa, and their ears were everywhere. "He says we've got some sort of angry spirit on her hands. Something that thinks it has a claim to Pitchfork."
"Your dad have a line on this thing?"
Al shook his head. "The sheriff's on his ass, and I don't think he knows how to deal with that, much less this spider thing."
Stevie shuddered. She’d raised zombies and put down ghosts, but spiders still gave her the willies. “It’s spiders this time?”
Al did his best to keep the mood light despite the danger they all knew was coming. “Big ones. Juicy like you wouldn’t believe.”
Stevie sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Maybe it’s not as bad as you guys think. Maybe it’s just a passing werespider or something. Maybe it’s already gone. It’s not like you know where it is, right?”
Elsa tossed the last of the rib bones on their plate and let out an enormous belch. She grinned at the shocked expressions on her mother's face. "That was delicious. You want me to find the monster for you guys?"
Al could feel his mother's indecision. She didn't want to bring Elsa into any other supernatural messes, but she also knew better than to turn down any weapon in this kind of fight. She reached out and took Elsa's hand in her own and looked deeply into her daughter's eyes. "I don't want you to do anything you're not comfortable doing. If you think you can dig up any information that might help us, we'd appreciate it, but I don't want you getting hurt."
Else shook her head, the wild, golden mane of her hair falling about her face, and took a deep breath. A cold blue glow leaked from her eyes, puddling on the table in front of her.
Al's skin pricked into gooseflesh as his sister's power reached through the veil between the land of the living and the nightshade empire of the dead. Not so long ago, she'd had to wear a mask to call to the spirits, but that had all changed once she'd become infected with the godsblood. Now, it seemed as if she was always straddling the line between worlds.