by Sam Witt
“We’re here to keep an eye on the scene, not to take orders from you.” The sheriff pushed the button, and the window rolled up in Joe’s face.
Joe stared at the sheriff through the glass, jaw clenched. There were rules - the Night Marshal and the sheriff worked together to keep the peace. Joe did not like the attitude he was getting from Dan the past couple of days. Yesterday, the lawman had been a little arrogant and bowed up. Today he was just being a dick.
He tapped the glass again. Inside, Dan sighed and rolled the window down again. “You get your ears hurt last night?”
Joe speared his right hand through the open window and closed his fingers under the sheriff’s jaw. His fingertips dug into the folds around Dan’s neck. Joe stepped away from the car and half-dragged the sheriff through the window. Dan’s belt hung up on the edges of the window, and Joe hauled harder. The sheriff’s pants caught around his ankles as he spilled out onto the oil-stained grass in a heap.
Dan staggered to his feet, yanking at his pants with one hand and fumbling for his pistol with the other. “You asshole, you are not —”
Shotgun barrels banged off the sheriff’s Adam’s apple, silencing him. At the other end of the shotgun, Joe glared at Dan. “The fuck is your problem?”
“I’m sick —”
“Choose your words very carefully, my friend. I am not the only one listening.”
Dan’s jaw clenched as he struggled to get his temper under control. “You don’t have to remind me. But there’s nothing in the Compact that makes me your goddamned slave.”
Joe pointed the shotgun at the ground. “You’re right, Dan. Will you and your crack troop of trained monkeys pretty please haul that spike out of the spring so I can figure out what in the fuck happened down here?”
“All you had to do was ask nice.” Dan thumbed the mic on his lapel and muttered something into it. Joe heard one of the cruisers growl to life and crawl down toward the spring. It stopped next to a big old oak with thick branches that spread out over the spring.
Joe and Dan stood at the water’s edge, silence thick between them. Joe tried not to watch Dan, but his eyes kept swiveling over to the sheriff. Something had changed, and Joe couldn’t shake the feeling it was important that he figure out just what that was. But other than being more of an asshole than normal, Joe couldn’t put his finger on what was different. He turned his attention back to the spike, a problem he could deal with.
Two of the deputies had tossed a thick cable up over one of the oak’s branches and fastened it around the spike. The other end of the cable ran back to the patrol car’s winch.
“Go slow,” Joe said.
The deputy manning the winch looked at him like he’d just been told to choke on his own shit. He spat a glob of tobacco juice and hauled on the winch’s lever. “I know how to do my job, thanks.”
The cable snapped taut, and the spike quivered in the water. The winch whined, and the cable hummed as tension mounted. The old oak groaned under the strain, its wood creaking and thick bark crackling as the cable dug into the branch.
Inch by inch, the spike rose from the water. The water around it darkened with gushing blood. By the time the iron had risen a foot, the spring was the color of old wine.
“Careful,” Joe started, but the deputy shook his head. The winch’s whine rose an octave.
The spike sprang into the air on a geyser of bloody water. The winch screamed and yanked the cable in faster, reeling it up so quickly the spike bounced across the ground between the spring and the trunk of the big oak. It thunked into the ground with a visceral splat after each hop, blood splattering the ground around it. By the time the deputy shut off the winch, the spike dangled six feet off the ground, a tangled mass of flesh and blood speared on its tip. The smell of bad meat filled the hollow.
“What the fuck is that?” The winch operator gagged. His partner bent at the waist and poured his guts out between his boots, back working like an oil derrick against the heaves of his belly.
Joe took a deep breath and walked over to the spike, trying to steel himself against what he knew he would find. The spike had harpooned a tangled mass that was red and raw and studded with white knobs of bone the size of his thumb. He walked around it, taking it in, trying to make sense of the obscenity.
“Howdy, Marshal.” The voice was thick and syrupy, dripping with hatred. Joe followed it around to the other side of the spike. “Get a good look.”
Joe tried not to let the half-made girl get to him, but what he saw burned itself right into his brain. Her face was pale and beautiful and tattooed with hair-fine lines that formed an interlocking pattern of symbols that Joe recognized from the last mess of a girl he’d found. Her eyes were ice blue and twinkled in the sunlight.
“Don’t be sad, Marshal. Not yet.” She winked at him. She was knotted up like a worm on a fishing hook, the spike piercing her at the left shoulder and emerging from just below the ribs on her right side. It plunged back into her left hip and erupted from the right side of her back. Her broken legs were impaled through the thighs, and her arms were folded in three places before being skewered on top of her legs. Long strips of skin were missing, as if they’d never been there, revealing spirals of raw flesh that leaked blood. Just a few moments out of the water, and already there was already a puddle of the stuff forming around her.
“Why?” Joe asked.
“You’ll see,” she whispered, craning her head toward him as far as she could reach. “Very soon.”
Joe left the half-made girl hanging from the tree and stalked back up to the sheriff. His nerves were restless under his skin, and his thoughts scattered. He wanted a drink. Or ten. It was too early, and he was too hungover for this shit.
Dan watched Joe come up the hill and didn’t even take one step to shorten the Night Marshal’s walk.
“Tell me our friends are still locked up.”
“Of course. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet.”
“The girl say anything?”
“Why would she talk to me?” Dan squared his shoulders, and his hand brushed the handle of his pistol. “No, she hasn’t said a word.”
Joe jerked his arm down the hill. “Lock this one up. Don’t take her off the spike.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ll see.” Joe didn’t know where this girl had come from, but nothing seemed simple anymore. He’d thought it would be so easy, he’d kill the bad people and the problem would go away. Only it hadn’t. Someone else was out there, doing something dark. “I’m going to come in to the station and have a little chat with our friends.”
“If it gets them out of my cells faster, fine with me.” Dan started walking down the hill, and Joe followed along behind him. The sheriff strode like a man in charge of things, strutting like he was running the whole show. It made Joe uneasy. What did the sheriff know that had him up on his high horse?
Joe watched the sheriff go down and join his deputies. Unlike the puker, Dan didn’t seem moved at all by what he saw. He took it in like he was looking over the day’s catch at the docks, and had his boys to work in seconds. Someone came up with a cutting torch and went to work, burning the iron spike into two pieces. Five minutes later, the half-made girl was on the ground, four feet of iron hooked through her flesh.
“Get ready,” she shouted, and her words splashed against Joe like a bucket of ice water. “We’ll be seeing you. Very soon.”
CHAPTER 22
JOE BARRELED DOWN the gravel drive to his house, letting the old truck’s rear-end slip and slide on the loose rocks as he headed for home. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched, that something vile was peering over his shoulder, lurking just out of sight. He killed the engine ten feet from the front porch, lifted the shotgun from its rack, and jogged up to the door. Guitar sounds, halting and jerky, drifted out of the house, the almost-music of Al plinking away on his battered six string, struggling to master the dirty blues rock he’d ta
ken to the year before.
“Stevie,” Joe shouted from the foyer, “time to go.”
Al froze, his strumming hand floating above the guitar’s scratched body. He got up off the couch and laid the guitar down where he’d been sitting. “What now?”
Stevie drifted into the living room on bare feet, her mane of hair leashed by a thick band of black cloth that matched her skater shorts and wifebeater. Smudges of rich, black earth dotted her cheeks, and her fingernails were tipped with dirty half moons.
“I’m in the middle of replanting the —” she started.
“No time. Pack a bag for you and Elsa.” Joe turned to his son. “Get some clothes and your toothbrush, Al. You’re going with the girls.”
“Joe,” Stevie held one hand out to her husband, palm facing out. “We’re not going anywhere. This is our home.”
“It’s not over,” Joe’s temper fought with his rising panic. The half-made girl’s words were lodged in his lizard brain, making him nervous and twitchy. There was a storm coming, and he had to get his family out of its way. “They’re coming for me, Stevie. I need you three gone, need you to get the kids somewhere safe.”
Stevie rolled her shoulders, brushed a loose strand of golden hair from her forehead with the back of her hand. “Where would we go? You want us to drive out of Pitchfork and hole up in a motel somewhere?”
“Don’t tell me. Just drive until you don’t recognize anything, then find a room and dig in for a few days.”
“And wait by the phone to hear if you’re alive or dead?” Stevie took a step toward her husband, hand half raised to touch his cheek. She stopped and clasped her hands behind her back. “That’s not the life I signed up for when I took your ring.”
“They’ll kill you, Stevie. They’ll kill you all.” Joe struggled with the mess he’d seen this morning, kept imagining his wife’s face atop that tangled pile of scraps. “I need you safe so I can fight this.”
“Let us help you.” Stevie took another step in Joe’s direction, and the air between them simmered with the heat of tangled emotion. “None of us are defenseless.”
Al cracked his knuckles and stretched to his full height. “She’s right.”
“They almost killed both of us last night.”
“But they didn’t.” Al furrowed his brow and clenched his fists. The skin over his knuckles shimmered, stretched, grew hardened and thick, then returned to normal in the blink of an eye. “We took them down.”
“You think that’s what I want for you three?” Joe came into the living room, Stevie trailing behind, and flopped down in his recliner, exhausted. He felt like he hadn’t slept for days and knew there wasn’t any rest coming until this mess was sorted out. “To do my job? To live like I do?”
He felt Stevie’s hands clench on the back of his chair. “Please don’t shut us out.”
Joe leaned forward, away from his wife’s touch, and buried his face in his hands. He could feel the cuts and swollen bruises under his fingers, remembered Al’s injuries, tried not to think about Stevie or Elsa cut up, bleeding, eyes swollen shut, stitches marching in ragged lines over their flesh.
“I can’t.” That was the dark truth. After what happened to Al and what almost happened to Elsa, he couldn’t put anyone else in the line of fire. “I never should have brought you all into this.”
Stevie’s fingers grazed his scalp, her healer’s touch gentle against the bat bites that covered his head like a bloody rash. “Is that what you think happened? That you lured us into danger with our eyes closed? I knew what a mess this would be when I married you. Al knew the danger when he went up there with you yesterday. Elsa knows more than all of us - she can see the other side, she knows what’s out there.”
“That’s over.” Joe hauled himself out of the chair and knuckled his lower back until his spine cracked and rattled like the old truck’s suspension hitting a pothole. “You’re out. All of you. This one’s on me.”
“It’s not that easy.” Al shrugged from where he stood a few feet from Joe. He locked eyes with his father. “It ain’t fair for you to ask us to sit by while you’re in danger. I don’t want to run. I can fight.”
“There aren’t any heroes here.” Joe took his son by the shoulders, held him at arm’s length. “You want to help, you watch your sister and keep your mother safe.”
“I don’t need anyone to keep me safe.” Stevie’s eyes grew dark, and her shadow swelled into the air around her. “My mother was the Bog Witch of Pitchfork County. I inherited all of her strength. You have no idea what I can do.”
“Stevie.” Joe’s voice was a low rumble. “You swore an oath to never touch what your mother left you.”
“That was before my husband brought darkness to my doorstep. I will do whatever it takes to keep my family safe.”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You know the Law.” Joe tried to rein in his temper. His stomach roiled with emotion and old whisky, his head ached from wounds and conflicting desires. “Would you throw everything away just so you don’t have to run?”
“It’s not about the running. This is our place. Our life. We’re bound together. Don’t ask me to leave you to die.”
“I’ll stop them. If I know you three are safe, I can concentrate on what I need to do. I’ll burn down this whole fucking county to stop them. But I need to know you’re safe.”
“What happens if they kill you?” Elsa’s singsong question was muffled by the expressionless mask hanging over her face. “What happens to us if you die?”
“Elsa, don’t.” Stevie hauled her daughter up into her arms and held her close. “Take off the mask, baby.”
“They want so much,” the little girl’s voice filled the room. She held the mask tight to her face with both hands, shrugging away from her mother. “You’re just one bite for them. One tiny bite.”
Joe dug his mangled badge out of his back pocket and stroked the runes on its surface while muttering the old words his father had taught him. The badge sparked once, but didn’t glow. The only spirit here was the one Elsa had invited into the mask, and it was benign as such things went.
“They won’t kill me,” he said, but the words sounded thin even to his ears. “I’ll find who’s behind this mess and end them before they get the chance.”
“Let us help,” Elsa’s voice was joined by dozens of others, whispering, crying, screaming. They came from every corner of the house, rattling the floor with their insistence. “You know not what you face.”
“That’s enough.” Joe slung the shotgun over his left shoulder. “I have to talk to someone. Please don’t be here when I get back.”
“I’ll keep them safe.” Stevie stood with her back straight, Elsa in one arm, the other wrapped around Al. Unfelt winds stirred loose strands of her blond hair, and Joe could see the lightning deep within her eyes.
“Just run.” Joe stomped out of his house and slammed the door behind him. He had to end this, soon. Before Stevie’s stubbornness got everyone he held dear killed.
CHAPTER 23
THE SHERIFF AND his deputies carried the mangled mess of flesh and iron away from the spring while doing their best not to look at it. The beautiful face didn’t speak, but when anyone made eye contact with it, it smiled wide and bright. More than once a deputy stumbled or lost his grip as a result of that smile, making everyone grumble and struggle to keep from dumping the girl onto the ground. It wasn’t big, but the weight was a tremendous burden, as if it wanted to be dropped.
“Stop looking at the fucking thing,” Dan growled. He opened the tailgate of one of the sheriff service trucks and slapped the bed. “Put it in here.”
“I am not an it,” the mangled lump of pierced flesh said, its voice cold and sweet as a glass of iced tea spiked with arsenic. “I am a she.”
Dan didn’t respond. He’d learned that much from dealing with the Night Marshal and his messes. Sometimes it was just best to ignore the supernatural and keep your head down. Not that such w
isdom had kept him from talking to the other girl.
“Take her back to the station and lock her in one of the cells. Alone.”
The deputies were watching him with veiled eyes. One of them decided to speak up and voice the concern they all shared. “Why we gotta keep cleaning this shit up?”
“We do what needs to be done to keep the peace.” Dan shrugged. “We’re just holding this for the Marshal. Twenty-four hours, no more.”
One of the men huffed at that. Dan stared at the gathered deputies.
“You don’t believe me? Well, fuck you, too.” He spat on the oil-streaked grass. “Things are changing around here. Don’t you doubt it. Go do something useful.”
The deputies drifted back to their rides. Dan watched with a growing sense of disgust as they jockeyed for position to leave the hollow. It took twenty minutes and six fender benders before his men managed to untangle the snarl of patrol cars and get on the road.
“Bunch of limp-dick pussies,” he muttered as he returned to his car. He could still feel Joe’s shotgun barrels pressed to his throat, the bowel-loosening fear that came from seeing the calm deadness in the Night Marshal’s eyes. The whole drive back to the station, most of forty-five minutes, that fear never left his heart. He took another lap around the block to try and shake it, giving his deputies time to find a cell for that poor mess of a girl. He didn’t know if he could stand to see her skewered on that iron like a chunk of bait on the world’s biggest fishing hook again.
By the time he clomped up the short flight of steps to the station’s front door, Dan felt better. Not great, but better. He’d keep these shitheels and monsters on lockdown for one more day, then tell the Night Marshal to come clear them out. They wouldn’t be his problem for much longer.
One of the deputies, a young woman named Tracie, nodded to Dan as he came through the front doors. There were blood stains all over the front of her uniform, and her arms and hands were streaked red.