by Cesare, Adam
“Continue, then we can all go home,” Tobin said.
“Brant had me take over for breakfast. All of that food is in a different refrigerator, except for the beef, that was locked in the stand-up fridge with a padlock. So there was no steak and eggs, but everything else on the menu I could fudge.”
“And he didn’t return for dinner?” Davey asked.
“No, but in between lunch and dinner I had a conversation with a guest about her missing dog. That’s how I knew what it was when I found it.”
“He’d skinned the poor thing?” Davey asked. “That’s what Tobin told me.”
“Yes, that, but he’d also started to clean the meat from the bones. Daisy and I had found a small Tupperware container with the separated meat in it.”
“There was always darkness in Roy. This is the way that it comes out now that he’s clean. Nobody’s ever really clean, I guess,” Davey said, making a show to talk more to himself than anyone else present. He turned his attention back to Claire. “Now, I know you don’t want to think about it, but please try and remember, were there any designs carved into the animal? Anything that looked vaguely pagan?”
“No. He’d just field-dressed it and peeled the skin off like Bert was a tiny deer. What is this?” Claire asked. “What are you investigating the hotel for?”
Davey clicked his tongue, knotted his brow in thought.
“If I tell you,” he said, back to talking to himself again, “it’s not only going to change the way you think about Ms. Brant, but the way you think about us,” Davey said. Then he looked at Tobin with an expression that asked, “Should I do it?”
“Tell me,” Claire said. Realizing that she’d voiced it as a demand, she added a “Please.
“You know those conspiracy theorists on the internet? 9/11 was an inside job? The president is a reptilian alien? It was Jackie O that shot her husband with a derringer concealed in her purse? All that stuff is crazy bullshit, so don’t confuse me with any of those people after what I’m about to say.”
“Okay,” Claire said. This was the precisely the preface that crazy bullshit seemed to accompany.
“For as long as it’s been here, the town of Mission has been run by a Satanist cult. The community was started by old-school Satanists, not harmful, just armchair dabblers in the occult. Have you ever heard of a guy named Anton LaVey?”
“The bald guy? The one who looked like present-day Rob Halford?”
“Yeah,” Davey said, looking over to Tobin, both of them surprised.
“I’ve got the Motörhead logo tattooed behind my calf, so don’t act so shocked that I know who Anton LaVey is,” Claire said. She expected more out of Tobin. He just shrugged.
“Anyway, he preached a kooky form of self-reliance and sold books. These people in Mission took some inspiration from him and set up the town because they wanted to live their dark hippie lifestyle in peace.”
Davey told his story with gusto. “Sure they sacrificed a few goats, had sex with each other’s wives and husbands, lit a few black candles, but that was the extent of it. The novelty of dancing around in velvet capes wore off eventually and folks started to leave the town in droves. They wanted to head back to suburbia, were done with rural commune life. This made Victoria Brant very unhappy.”
“No townspeople means no town means no hotel, correct?”
“Who is telling the story here?” Davey said, but he didn’t sound upset. In a way he looked delighted. “Yes, you’re right. Brant had to up the ante, try to turn what remained of the population into true believers.”
“If they were harmless New Age kooks, why the investigation?” Claire asked. Her fear dissolved as she found herself swept up in the romance of Davey’s fantasy. She didn’t believe it, but it made a great story, one that Silverfish yearned to play a part in. Silverfish, not Claire. Claire cashed checks and waited tables and cleaned hotel rooms. Silverfish would rather be skipping her first-period chemistry class because she’d attended a midnight screening of Repo Man or drawing up a Dungeons & Dragons campaign where all the characters names are taken from all the lineups of Black Sabbath.
“Because they aren’t harmless. They’re killers. She’s started murdering people in her rituals and the town loves her for it,” Davey said. No smile this time.
Just as quickly as she had pushed to the fore, Silverfish retreated back inside Claire, back to a high school existence that would never end. Davey’s story was suddenly no longer fun.
“You have proof of that?” Claire asked.
“We’ve got a section of forest filled up with cars that belong to missing persons, a local population that is violently hostile towards me and my friends, a chef that carves up beloved house pets and—most convincingly—we’ve got an eyewitness account of a human sacrifice taking place in the basement of the hotel,” Davey said, leaning closer with each item on his list.
“You’re the eyewitness,” Tobin said.
Claire didn’t need to be reminded, she already knew. Her face felt hot and her throat was dry as she tried to swallow. She had to work to build up the moisture to ask her next question.
“What happens now?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Claire was now a double agent.
That was the thought she had as she fell into Tobin’s bed. This would be the last time she’d be sleeping under his roof for a while, so she told herself to enjoy it. Davey had told her that, after tonight, she’d have to stay at The Brant for the time being. So her absence didn’t arouse suspicion.
According to Davey, Brant already knew that she was spending nights out in the woods, there was no fooling her. “Anything that Daisy knows, Victoria knows. So think carefully about what you’ve shared with her and where she sees you go. As sweet and naïve as she seems, don’t trust her.”
She considered her new life of espionage as she pulled the sheets up over her uniform. She realized that she was saturating the fabric in Tobin’s musk and did not care one bit.
Tobin didn’t take his clothes off, either. He slid into bed beside her, grabbing her from behind, but not in the way he usually did. There was no sex in his touch, only caring and softness.
With one arm around her midsection, he pulled the band out of her hair with his free hand and placed it on the nightstand (an upended milk crate). He then began to stroke her hair, his fingers occasionally taking a gentle dig in and scratching her scalp.
His touch was magic. Every time the tips of his fingers would dip into her vision, he’d wrap the half-silver strand of her hair around his finger before pulling back and brushing the rest of her head. He worked in order, making sure not to miss an area and giving her just enough of a scalp massage to be relaxing instead of erotic.
“What’s that?” she asked, having to try to form the words through the heaviness of her lips. Her eyes focused and unfocused on the black cylinder on Tobin’s nightstand. The object was smaller on one end than the other, matte black, and phallic.
Despite the pressures of the day, she felt herself get hot under her stockings.
“That’s something I picked up for protection,” Tobin whispered in her ear.
“From what?” Claire said feeling like this was a joke.
Tobin took his hand from her waist and reached over her to the nightstand. He picked up the cylinder, the muscles and veins in his forearm bulging. It must have been heavier than it looked.
With a quick motion of his wrist the cylinder transformed with a loud click like a gun being cocked. It sounded dangerous.
“Oh,” Claire heard herself say, pulling closer to consciousness, no longer as tired.
The cylinder was no longer overtly sexual in appearance, but that didn’t make the weapon any less of a turn-on.
“Can I hold it?”
“Sure,” he said. “But be careful, it’s heavy. I don’t want you knocking any of those pretty teeth out.” He gave her a small but audible kiss on the forehead and handed over the baton.
Even with hi
s warning she’d nearly dropped it on her face. How could something so small be so heavy? She used two hands to lift it up, pointing it forward.
“How do I make it go down again?” she asked.
“This here,” he said, gliding her thumb over the small switch on the side. The tip of the weapon dropped back into the segment behind it, everything collapsing back into the handle.
She whipped both hands forward and extended the baton again.
“This is the weapon of a Jedi warrior. Not as random or clumsy as a blaster,” she said and then made the appropriate accompanying sounds.
Tobin laughed.
“Shouldn’t I have one of these?” she asked. “If I’m supposed to be going undercover, don’t I need a concealed weapon? What if they dragged me into Father Hayden’s room and he put a spell on me? Turned me into a newt or some shit?”
Earlier in the night, she’d heard all about how Brant was using the crippled priest as her new figurehead for her regime. The townspeople were under the impression that he was a powerful black priest that she’d had shipped overseas.
Davey didn’t believe that Brant or anyone else possessed demonic supernatural power. Claire considered this and asked why then was it her job to gather information about Father Crispy if Davey didn’t believe in him?
Davey had responded that it didn’t matter what he believed only what the people of Mission thought he was capable of.
It made a certain kind of sense, but still didn’t sound like a good enough reason for Claire to start asking questions about Father Hayden. Everything about going back to work to be a spy scared her.
“And I’m not allowed to scare off any of the guests? Even Christine and her wife?” Claire had asked Davey.
“We’ll try to protect everyone the best we can, but for your own safety, Brant can’t suspect that you’re trying to undermine her.”
Tobin wrapped his hand around the baton, pressing his palm into the end and collapsing it. “If you like it so much, it’s yours. Just don’t let anyone see you with it. Keep it on you at all times, because Daisy probably goes through your draws when you’re not in your room.”
All this talk about being watched diminished her libido and the warmth she’d felt a few minutes ago was gone.
She slipped the baton into the front pocket of her apron. Even through the fabric she could feel the coolness of the metal.
After Davey had left them, Claire had asked Tobin about what had been going through her mind the entire conversation. “When can I leave?”
“We’re going back right now,” he’d answered.
“No, I mean, if I asked you to would you drive me back to Boston? Right now. If I didn’t feel up to helping you and your friend.”
Tobin had stopped walking and looked her in the eye, lowering the lantern so she could see his face without the glare. “Of course I would. If that’s what you wanted. I’ve never been to Boston, it might be nice to visit.”
That was all she’d needed to hear. “Just making sure.”
She recalled all this from the bed in the shack, Tobin’s arm around her, his hand playing with her hair, the cool of the baton pressing against her abdomen.
She felt a complete serenity that she couldn’t remember having with Mickey.
It wasn’t until her conscious mind spooled down and she fell toward sleep that the nightmares began. The coldness against her thigh became the chilled paw of Bert. As that refrigerator burn warmed, the paw transformed into the cold hand of Christine, bloodless and dead. From the hand materialized the rest of the woman’s body. Christine’s face melted and resolved itself into Allison’s familiar half-smirk.
In her dreams Claire had discovered something, made a horrible connection that involved her friend that still wasn’t strong enough to wake her.
She was so tired.
A world away, Tobin kissed her and tried to soothe her as she spoke gibberish in her sleep.
When Claire awoke to her alarm the next morning, she didn’t remember anything about the nightmares.
Not even the part that so disturbed her while it was unfolding.
Chapter Twenty-Six
By the time Claire had stopped hitting the snooze on her alarm and returned to The Brant she was three hours late for work.
“Where have you been and what have you been doing? You’ve missed out on some major drama,” Daisy said.
Any time anyone said the word drama aloud without describing the genre of a movie, Claire felt herself hating that person a little more.
Claire remembered her coaching. “I’ve been with Tobin, doing, you know.” The plan was to hide her affiliation with Davey by playing up her sexual relationship with Tobin. “I’m only human.”
“I’ve warned you about that, but…” Daisy threw up her arms, a blush evident on her fleshy face. It was working, Daisy didn’t much care about whether Claire got cozy with Tobin or not, as long as she stayed away from Davey.
“Well. we’ve got a new cook,” Daisy said. Changing the subject away from sex, a topic that appeared to both shame and intrigue Daisy. “You’re no longer it.”
Claire tried to look relieved. “Who is it?”
“Mr. Dwyer’s wife. I’d forgotten that he had a wife until she showed up and asked to be let into the kitchen. She never comes to any of the hotel functions and doesn’t help Pat mind the store.”
Knowing what she knew now, “hotel function” in that context sounded like a euphemism for black mass.
Daisy had been taking care of Claire’s route for her while she was gone, but now pushed the linen cart down the hallway towards Claire. “I took care of twenty-one and twenty-three for you already.”
“Thanks. Does she seem nice?” Claire said. She was having trouble relating to Daisy in the way she used to before Bert. Now she looked at Daisy and wondered how much of the vacuous attitude was genuine and how much of it was a character she was playing.
“Pat’s wife? She’ll do until Roy turns up or Ms. Brant finds a professional to take his place.”
Not that Claire remembered much more than dreamlike snapshots, but she tried to recall the masked female form that was helping to clean up the subbasement. Could that have been Daisy under that poncho, loading dismembered body parts of guests into a black garbage bag?
Claire felt a single bead of sweat glide down the back of her neck. She needed to get herself under control. Before this was all over, she would be speaking with much more intimidating people than Daisy. She chastised herself for letting Davey’s ghost stories put a cinematic spin on the bad trip she’d had after that first party.
“Are you okay?” Daisy asked. “Are you sure you’ve just been with Tobin?”
“Yes, why?” Claire almost swore, felt cornered. She tried to think what she was supposed to do if she got caught, but they hadn’t gone over that. In her moment of panic, she almost took the baton from her front pocket and rapped it against Daisy’s thick skull.
“You look pale and sweaty is all, I just want to make sure you haven’t been going to any more of those parties,” Daisy said, fixing her mouth into a church-lady frown. “Last time that happened, I was scrubbing sick off the floor and changing your clothes for you. I told you I wouldn’t do it again, remember?”
“I remember,” Claire said, climbing back down from alarm. She hadn’t been followed or found out. Daisy was just her mother hen.
“I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m living clean. Promise.”
“Not much sleep? Ick! I don’t need to hear the gruesome details of your personal life, Claire,” Daisy said.
She was easily offended for a woman who’d just yesterday wrapped up a dead dog and just moments earlier was blushing at the same details from Claire’s life. This was the bipolar duality of Daisy. “Please hurry up and clean the rest of these rooms.”
Daisy collected up her keychain from the top of the cart as she passed and then walked down the stairs.
Claire found herself concerned that she’
d offended Daisy in some way, but then steeled her nerves, reminding herself that she didn’t have an ounce of pity left for Daisy.
There was Zen calmness in resuming her normal route and cleaning up after guests.
It was scary to realize that the exercise that had exhausted her a month ago now brought her a compulsive pleasure. She fluffed pillows, squared bed sheets, folded towels and let her mind go blank as she performed these menial tasks.
She let herself fill in details about guests’ lives and vacations through their belongings. A brochure for cave formation combined with a flashlight to change her impression of an elderly couple into aging-but-still-brave explorers. A mound of condom wrappers in a young guest’s trash bin told her that they would probably be returning to the room after breakfast. Cleaning was part detective game, part daydream.
It wasn’t until she reached the honeymoon suite that the reality of the last twenty-four hours smacked her on the nose.
She remembered that she was not supposed to interfere with Christine and her wife, but was she really going to start taking exacting orders from a man who lived in a Winnebago parked the woods?
The Do Not Disturb sign hung from the knob. That meant that they were probably in there. She fished her phone out of her front pocket, her fingers brushing against the foam-and-metal grip of the baton.
It was ten thirty. There were plenty of guests that slept that late. Protocol was to take note of doors with the sign out front and then try them again after all other rooms had been cleared.
Claire took a quick look around for any other guests or staff and then knocked softly on the door to the honeymoon suite.
There was no answer.
In for a penny, Claire started to think, but the aphorism came out in Daisy’s voice so she stopped.
She knocked harder.
There were no sounds from behind the door, no groggy voices being woken from sleep, no gentle hiss of the shower, nothing.
They could have left for the day without removing the sign, Claire thought.