Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3)

by Jen Rasmussen

  Were they in training themselves? Or were they training somebody else?

  Or something else, like birds maybe? Phineas continued to insist that Amias’s birds couldn’t be trained, but then Phineas didn’t know everything. How had Amias gotten them to my plane in the first place, to attack Bella, if they weren’t trained? As far as I was concerned, his odd relationship with them counted as a form of domestication.

  Where had they gone when they were finished with Bella? The thought of those birds swarming over my own world made me ill.

  Since the night I saw Bella Traven with Helen Turner in the middle of the road, my nightmares had become more frequent. That pecked flesh. Sometimes Bella had a face again, but it was Helen’s face, accusing or, worse, laughing.

  Wendy called me in early October, a couple of weeks after our meeting with Madeline.

  “Our Goode friends are up to something in the woods,” she said.

  I smiled at her pun. “I see what you did there. How do you know?”

  “Caleb followed them a little.”

  “Why?”

  “We hired a few of the kids who used to work at the diner that closed, to help out here at the shop. So he had a free afternoon yesterday.”

  “And he decided to spend it spying?”

  “He decided to spend it hiking. But he saw Jonas Goode’s car at the Greyhill trailhead, up the mountain road.”

  “Why would Jonas drive up there? They have access to that trail from the hotel.”

  “Exactly. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen? Possible he’s just having a tryst with a high school student up there at Greyhill. But it seems worth checking out.”

  I thought worth checking out was an understatement. If Madeline and Jonas did have anything to do with Amias’s birds, I wouldn’t think they’d want such creatures at the hotel. They’d need someplace to keep them, and there were plenty of ruined buildings and places to hide back in those woods.

  “I’ll try to get in touch with Phineas,” I said. “But I’ll come out there in a day or two whether I’ve managed to find him or not.”

  “Come Tuesday. That’s my afternoon off, and I want to go with you.”

  After we’d tried all of Martha Corey’s honeysuckle spells with no luck, Phineas had gone home to chase down the rumor about Henrietta being at the Library. I still had his old sock, the first thing he gave me to help Wulf track him. I barely had to give Wulf the command anymore. The second I got it out he was pawing at me, trying to get it out of my hand. I opened the door for him a short time later.

  “Thanks, buddy. Be careful.”

  They weren’t back by the time I was ready to leave on Tuesday, but I knew they could find me wherever I was. I wondered, not for the first time, why Wulf could travel between worlds, just like Phineas, when the one time I’d tried to just talk across the planes it almost killed me. But then, anyone who thinks humans are entirely superior to dogs hasn’t spent a lot of time around dogs.

  I didn’t meet Wendy at the Witch’s Brew. Chatting with outsiders like Phineas and me when we came in as customers was one thing. Leaving with me was another, and it might have raised a few eyebrows. We didn’t think raised eyebrows would be helpful in achieving our goals. So instead I met her at the little parking area for the Greyhill trail, where we could be two hikers who happened to run into one another.

  “So, what do people think of him?” I asked as we started up the trail. “Jonas Goode, I mean.”

  Wendy hitched her backpack up a little higher and shrugged at the same time. “Nobody here loves outsiders as a general rule, but Madeline Underwood has a lot of influence in this town. And then he’s friendly. Kind of charming, don’t you think? I mean, if you didn’t know he was married to a ghoul?”

  I remembered his smile, when we first met him. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought it was sincere. Hell, I did know better, a lot better, than to trust anything connected to Madeline Underwood, and I’d still half-thought it was sincere. I had to talk myself out of it.

  “Yeah, I can see where he’d get popular,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” said Wendy. “Madeline has a lot of influence, but that doesn’t equate to being loved. But he’s accepted, anyway. People probably already like him better than they do her.”

  I laughed at that. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  There’s nothing quite like autumn in the mountains, and despite the fact that I might or might not have been out there hunting demons, or demon birds, we enjoyed the walk. It was a beautiful day, with the kind of cool breeze that was all too welcome after suffering through a Carolina summer. When we made it to Greyhill we poked around the makeshift fire pit where the teenagers hung out, but all we found there were teenagery kinds of things: junk food wrappers, cheap beer cans, a hair clip that was blessedly not attached to a disembodied scalp. We looked around the ruined house, too, but found nothing at all in there except rodent poop.

  That was all fine. We had to search there, since it was the Greyhill trail Caleb had seen Jonas on, but I didn’t really expect to find any evidence of what he was up to in such a high traffic spot.

  “So where to next?” Wendy asked.

  “I think all the old ruined buildings are worth checking out,” I said.

  “You really think those birds are here somewhere? Like they’re just keeping a cage in the woods where anyone could stumble across it?”

  I shrugged. “Or maybe a portal of some kind, to bring them back and forth. I have no idea, to tell you the truth. But Madeline had that feather on her shoe.”

  We kept walking along the trail that snaked its way back to the Mount Phearson Hotel. And off trail as well, into the bones of the old dead Bristol, the ruined outbuildings of what was once Colonel Phearson’s estate, and later became the hotel. Crumbling foundations, half-walls, hearths that warmed nothing. They always struck me as sad and eerie. But then, Eerie would have been a better name for that town than Bristol. It was its defining characteristic. Wendy and Caleb were the only really likable people I’d ever met there.

  “Why do you guys stay here?” I asked as we pushed our way through a patch of undergrowth.

  “What, in Bristol?” Wendy asked, then realizing the answer was obvious, went on without waiting for one. “We grew up here. Our families are here.”

  I was struck, as she said it, by the fact that their family didn’t include any children of their own. I wondered if some part of her hadn’t wanted to start a family while the town was in thrall to the Bristol devil. But that was probably just projection on my part.

  “Mostly all you’ve met here are Underwoods, or Madeline’s Garden Club,” Wendy said. “And all of them have tried to kill one or the other of you, right?”

  “Sometimes both of us.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly a representative sample of Bristol.”

  “Why not? You just got through telling me how influential they are.”

  “I believe I also said it didn’t mean anyone liked them.” Wendy sighed and shrugged. “They were the devil’s people. And I know we sort of all were. But there were side effects to his being here that weren’t bad. There are a lot of witches in this town. I doubt that’s coincidence. I imagine his influence made it fertile ground for magic. But there are more good witches than bad ones.” She grinned at me. “Or mostly-good witches. Better-than-an-Underwood witches.”

  I laughed. “I hope you hold yourselves to higher standards than that.” I remembered talking to her about the long line of witches she came from, once before. “I’d like to meet your grandmother some time,” I said.

  Wendy snorted, but whatever she was about to say was cut off by some rustling in the underbrush. We stopped and instinctively moved closer to one another. I’d applied for a gun permit the week before—it was seeming a more and more necessary part of my life, lately—but for the moment all I really had in my backpack to defend myself from a live person was a heavy flashlight that might, in a pinch, be used to bludgeon
somebody.

  I had more that was useful against dead people, but the rustling was getting louder and more chaotic: trampling, lumbering, twigs and branches breaking in somebody’s wake. Dead people didn’t usually make that much noise. Neither, for that matter, did harmless hikers. This was someone moving quickly, and with purpose. Without regard for the land around them.

  I felt Wendy stiffen beside me. Whoever or whatever was coming, it sounded like more than just two feet. Which meant one of three things: a human running on all fours, a large animal, or more than one person.

  I got the flashlight out of my bag. Wendy did me one better with a pocket knife. There was a flash of red somewhere off to my right. My stomach dipped as I turned to face it.

  And then: “Could you not at least have led me to a trail?”

  Phineas’s voice.

  The flash of red was Wulf’s collar. He was on top of me a second later, licking and baying. I’ve said it before: Wulf was not one for stealth.

  Phineas grinned at Wendy as she stepped up to hug him. I felt a pang of… what? Not jealousy, exactly, but maybe discomfort. Phineas and I never hugged. We hadn’t started out as friends. And now I was depending on him for so much. I barely knew him, when it came down to it. All that time together, and he’d never told me Amias was his cousin. Never told me about Amias at all, until he had no choice.

  But then, there was plenty I’d never told him, either. I smiled and waved without moving closer. “So he found you.”

  “He did,” Phineas agreed.

  “We’re in Bristol, by the way,” I said. I had no idea whether that was obvious to him or not. I thought it must be disorienting, traveling like that. “Any luck at home?”

  Phineas shook his head. “I left a message for someone at the Library. Hopefully I’ll be able to get in touch with her at some point. But you have to remember, it’s only been a couple of days my time since Bella was killed. Not everyone can just drop everything and talk to me right away.”

  “I guess it wouldn’t make you very popular to drag people out of bed every time something happens here on earth,” said Wendy.

  “This isn’t a small thing, though,” I argued. “Amias has killed more of their kind than ours.”

  “Well, I still have a couple of places I can look,” Phineas said. “I was just about to track down some people who knew the Travens as kids, kind of like old school friends, when this guy came bounding up to me.” He bent to pet Wulf, who wagged and licked at his hand.

  “So how does that work?” I asked. “You just have to go with him, right then? You couldn’t have just asked Wulf to wait? Tied him to a tree or something?”

  “Sure I could,” said Phineas. “Or I could have sent him back with a note tied to his collar and caught up with you later. But…” He ducked his head, his ears starting to get rosy. “With everything that’s been going on, I thought I’d better just come back with him right away.”

  He was worried about me. I didn’t have to know his family history to know I could trust him. My smile was more genuine this time. “Thank you for coming.”

  He gave me his one-sided smile. “Glad to be of service. So what exactly are we doing?”

  Wendy sighed and started walking in the direction we’d been heading before Wulf’s approach had distracted us. “Trudging,” she said. “There’s a lot of woods back here, and we don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

  “I have a feeling we’ll know it when we see it,” I said. I filled Phineas in on why we were there.

  “So you’re actually looking for shadow eaters back here?” His voice practically squeaked.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you sound scared before.”

  “Lydia. You’ve seen what these birds do. Even if you’re right and they’re here, you can’t just go seeking them out. Especially if you’re right. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Well, how do you propose I find out, apart from looking?”

  He seemed to have no answer to that.

  “Anyway, they won’t just be flying around free,” said Wendy. “They’d have to be contained somehow, or they’d be eating half of Bristol, right?”

  “I suppose.” Phineas didn’t look any more comfortable.

  “Or I was saying to Wendy, maybe they’ve got some kind of portal to move them between the planes,” I said. “Would something like that be possible?”

  Phineas frowned, then shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

  He was still hesitant, but since Wendy and I were clearly going to keep looking with or without him, he grudgingly stuck with us.

  Two hours later, we were all about ready to give up. We’d exhausted our supplies of snacks and water, and it was definitely time for dinner. We were talking about driving down to a restaurant in Crowley’s Peak before I drove back to Charlotte.

  But not quite yet. We’d been covering the woods methodically, working our way from the mountain road where we’d parked the cars, down toward the Mount Phearson. And there was one more shell of a building, the closest one to the hotel, that we had left to check.

  Wulf growled low, and his hackles went up.

  “We’re coming up on Silas Underwood’s old place.” I gestured forward with my chin. “Wulf doesn’t like it there.” He had, in fact, nearly been killed there, when we’d lost him the spring before.

  Phineas bent to put a comforting hand on Wulf’s back at the same time I did, and our heads bumped. He straightened up with an after you sort of gesture, and I gave Wulf a little pep talk to urge him forward.

  “As far as I know, Silas’s ghost is still there,” I said. “Or at least, he seemed pretty determined to stay the last time I saw him. Maybe we can get some kind of hint out of him.”

  “I can’t imagine he’d be so cooperative, would he?” asked Wendy. “I mean, I don’t know him, but he is an Underwood, right?”

  “Every inch an Underwood,” I said. “He did cooperate with me once, but I had to threaten to send him to Hell.”

  “You haven’t got the authority to send him to Hell!” said Wendy.

  “No,” I agreed. “I just figured it was obvious which direction he’d go, if I forced him to move on. But I’m not the judge.”

  “Despite occasional bouts of judginess,” Phineas said.

  I smacked him as we approached Silas’s. Wulf was still on high alert, almost crawling toward the remains of the house, lips pulled back from his teeth. I saw Phineas give the dog a wary look, but I shook my head.

  “It’s Silas’s ghost he’s afraid of. Remember that night he ruptured his spleen?”

  The place was as overgrown as the last time I’d seen it, and looked pretty much the same. But it smelled different.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  Wendy frowned. Phineas sniffed at the air, not unlike Wulf. But Wulf had already drawn back with a whine, to huddle against my legs.

  “It smells like a zoo,” I said.

  Wendy shook her head. “No, it smells like a bird cage. I had parakeets when I was a kid. I wanted a dog, of course, but we all knew the Bristol devil would take dogs and cats. So birds or fish were my choices. My mom used to get on my case because I didn’t clean the cage often enough. And when I let it go especially long, it smelled just like this.”

  I tugged on Wulf’s leash, but he wouldn’t go any further. I handed him off to Phineas and took a few steps forward.

  Three things happened at once.

  The first was a sharp “Lydia!” from Phineas.

  The second was something hitting me, hard, and then picking me up. Not like a person lifting me, more like a gust of wind. It threw me forward to the edge of the great pit where Silas had once buried Hugh Pierce’s dog. My hands tangled in weeds and poison ivy, dirt got in my eyes, and I started to sneeze.

  The third thing was a great black shadow, rising from the pit like some sort of demon.

  As I coughed dirt out of my throat, the
big shadow separated into dozens of smaller ones. Shadows that were flying, on a wave of birdsong, directly at my head.

  Then everything was caramel gold and gun-metal gray feathers, and tiny serrated beaks. A glimpse of one yellow eye. And the noise of flapping wings, so many flapping wings.

  You don’t know they’re there until they’re on top of you.

  They were on top of me.

  I can’t even begin to describe this pain. I’m not sure any human language has the words for it. It was like stabbing, and burning, but also like neither of those things. Maybe it was more like venom, from a snake or a spider bite.

  My arms, curled protectively over my head, were soon running with blood. They also felt like they were crawling with something. A thousand fire ants, maybe. Or a thousand bits of my flesh, as it was ripped off and fell, sliding over the blood, to the ground. I didn’t look down.

  Something or someone grabbed me and tugged me against them. Phineas, I thought. He was shouting, but there was a bird in my ear, stabbing me with that beak, and I couldn’t hear anything but its incongruously melodious chirping and my own scream as I grabbed it, repulsed by its smooth wriggling body, and threw it away from me.

  This is what Bella Traven’s last moments were like. I wonder if Amias will put my scalp someplace for someone to find, too. Charlie, maybe. I hope he makes sure Warren doesn’t see it.

  Those were the last thoughts I had that were even partly coherent. After that came a jumble of inane questions that had nothing to do with my actual life, had I left the oven on, what time was my exam, where was the fire escape? Amid all this confusion was a horrible crushing pain in my skull.

  I’d experienced something like this once before, when I did an evocation ritual to find Phineas. It wasn’t something I cared to repeat.

  Then my chest felt like it was being compressed. I was struggling for air. And as anyone who’s ever had a moment of panic in deep water knows, when you can’t breathe, breathing is all you can think of. I don’t remember anything except the desperate struggle to make my lungs move, even though they felt like they were made of cement. My throat worked noiselessly and uselessly.