The Dark Communion (The Midnight Defenders)

by Joey Ruff

  Stone: “Look, you smoking idiot, I found this piece of tree bark inside. What do you think it means?”

  Detective: “Well, the logical thing to take from this is that a tree killed Arthur Towers, trashed the place and set off the silent alarm.”

  Stone: “A tree? Are you sure?”

  Detective: “Of course I’m sure, you hot little thing. I’m a detective, after all.”

  Stone: “If a tree is responsible, how am I going to pin this on Jonothan Swyftt?”

  As the Stone in my head said my name, the Stone in front of me looked toward the squad car, spied me through the rear window. I shot her a half-smile, and she snarled like a feral dog.

  She barked an order to one of the uniformed officers that happened to be walking by, said something that looked angry, and pointed at me. I imagined she said, “You there, Officer Curtis, get that man an ice cream cone.”

  The officer said something akin to, “I think Swyftt deserves a lobster dinner for bringing down a blood-thirsty child abductor.”

  And then the booming voice of Stone yelled out, “Someone find me Officer Kerns!”

  I could only guess Kerns was going to uncuff me and take me to Red Lobster. My mouth began to water then, and it helped my parched throat if only a little. In a port town like Seattle, Red Lobster wasn’t the go-to seafood restaurant, but it was more welcome than the alternative. Jail food wasn’t served with cheesy biscuits.

  Another uniform approached – Officer Kerns, I presumed. She pointed at me again and the Stone in my head said, “Can you get this man a lobster dinner?”

  Officer Kerns nodded, and then I heard her yell again, “Get him out of here!” Kerns approached the car, took his place in the driver’s seat, and put the car in gear. As he pulled out, I turned back to Stone, watched her mouth the words, “I’ll see you soon,” in exaggerated lip motions, and then she got smaller and smaller as Kerns drove away from the scene.

  I turned to Kerns, seeing only what little of him was illuminated by the glow of the dash and the stereo. From what I gathered, he was a mousey-looking kid, young, big ears like the mascot of Mad Magazine. “So what did I do?” I asked.

  He said nothing. He turned the jazz music up louder.

  “Don’t I have the right to an attorney?”

  He turned the music down just a hint and said, “You want me to read you your rights?”

  “I don’t think you should be reading while you drive.”

  He ignored me, turned the music louder than before. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and sank back against the very uncomfortable seat, letting my head roll back on the hard cushion, and watched a dark spot on the ceiling of the car as the road vibration irritated my aching body. The handcuffs didn’t help either.

  I might have drifted off a little, because it only seemed like a few minutes until we pulled up outside Anderson’s precinct. Kerns opened my door and waited as I fidgeted and stumbled out of the car. He let me walk ahead and grabbed my shoulder loosely, guiding me toward the front door of the station.

  The next half hour wasn’t pleasant. They removed the cuffs to fingerprint me and made me stand on a line while they took my mug shots. They sat me at a desk and made me tell them my name, address and other information and tossed me into a small concrete cell with nothing but a tiny plank for a bed and a toilet no bigger than a Folgers can.

  As I was getting comfortable, or at least attempting to, given my injuries and the condition of my quarters, Detective Anderson came by.

  “Mr. Swyftt,” he said. “This isn’t exactly the kind of place I would have expected to find you.”

  I nodded.

  “Looks like Special Agent Stone made good on her threat.”

  “Looks like it, mate,” I said. “You happen to know where Stone is?”

  “On her way back here now, I think. She just called, asked me to keep a close eye on you personally. I don’t know what it is between you two, but she really doesn’t care for you, son.”

  “It’s a long story.” I didn’t want to get into it for a second time today.

  He nodded. “I’m gonna go get me a coffee.”

  “Think I can get some water?” I asked. “Maybe my phone call?”

  “They didn’t give you your phone call?” He pulled out a key ring and opened my cell door. “C’mon. I’ll take you over there. You need the cuffs on?” He smiled.

  “I think I’ll manage.”

  “Right. Just don’t you go trying to run off.”

  After a stop by the coffee machine, he took me to his office, handed me a bottle of water from a mini fridge he kept, and set the phone on his desk. I downed half the bottle in one, long swig. “Local calls only,” he said with a boyish grin.

  I dialed the house. After three rings, Nadia answered. “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Oh my God, where have you been?”

  “With Ape.”

  “Ape got back almost an hour ago. Where are you?”

  I took a slow breath and breathed out even slower. “Let me talk to Ape.”

  “Where are you, Jono?”

  “I’m in jail,” I said. “I need to talk to Ape.”

  “Jail!? What are you doing in jail? Holy crap!” She was getting excited and her voice was getting pitchy.

  “Calm down. We were working a case. Did he tell you what happened?”

  “I haven’t spoken with him. He came in, went straight upstairs and locked himself in the study. He won’t come out.”

  “He abandoned me,” I said, trying not to, but getting increasingly annoyed regardless.

  “What happened? What did you guys do?”

  “I’ll tell ya later. Just tell him to get his monkey arse down here and get me. He owes me that much.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try, but…”

  “And tell him to bring his checkbook.” I hung up on her, handed the phone back to Anderson.

  “That the old lady?” he asked with a smile. I raised an eyebrow, looked at him curiously. “I heard her through the phone. She get excited? They tend to do that when you mention jail.”

  “My daughter.”

  “Uh huh,” he said. He grabbed a small picture frame from a bookshelf behind his chair and handed it to me. It was a picture of two girls on the beach, freckled-faced redheads in white sun dresses, long hair blowing in a soft breeze. The sky behind them was a little dark and the ocean rolled just beyond an outcropping of tall reeds. “I have daughters, too. High schoolers. You gotta watch them at that age.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, dismissing him. I set the frame down on the corner of his desk. “Nadia’s a good kid. I don’t worry about her. She worries about me.”

  “For good reason.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You’re the one in jail.”

  I shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Well, we might as well get you back to that cell. Don’t suppose Agent Stone would be none too happy to see you out and about.”

  I nodded. Grabbed my water bottle and headed back to the hallway where my cell waited, Anderson right behind me. About halfway there, the cackling voice of Stone broke through the precinct floor, saying, “Detective Anderson, what is going on here?”

  He turned slowly, fixed a broad smile on his cheeks, and oozed with that “Good old boy” charm as he said, “Special Agent Stone. I was just seeing to Mr. Swyftt’s phone call. Personally, just like you asked.”

  “Why is the prisoner not in cuffs?”

  “He didn’t appear to be a threat to me, ma’am.”

  She turned to What’shisname who stood just behind her, a cup of coffee in his hand, and said, “Get this man…” She let out a harried “harrumph” and spun to her other side, seeing a uniformed officer walking back from the bathroom. “You, officer… Get this man in cuffs.” She pointed to me. “And take off his jacket. It’s evidence.”

  He nodded and brought out his cuffs. He slipped the coat off my shoulders, and I
was in too much pain to fight him. He tossed it over the back of a nearby chair and slapped the cuffs on my wrists.

  “This doesn’t mean we’re going steady,” I told him.

  “Detective Anderson,” Stone said, “This man is a suspect in a murder case, found near the body of a man who was reported missing from a nursing home several weeks ago. He needs to be locked up. He’s quite dangerous.”

  “Allegedly,” I said.

  She rolled her eyes at me. “He is dangerous and he does not need to be walking around. He needs to be locked up.”

  Anderson nodded. “We were just on our way back to his cell when you stopped us.”

  “I…,” she said, rather loudly. She took a deep breath to steady herself, her hands out in front of her. She closed her eyes for a second, bit her lip, then looked at me and said, “Take him to an interrogation room. I need to have a few words with him.”

  “Alone time,” I winked.

  She scowled at me, and as her eyes roamed toward the floor, she must have spotted the water bottle in my hand for the first time and wrenched it from my fingers, tossed it in an empty trash can. Then turned away and stomped off. What’shisname glanced at me with what I took to be an apologetic look and followed after.

  Anderson turned to me and said, “Sorry, son. Let’s get you into one of those rooms then.”

  “You’re just doing your job, Detective.”

  He escorted me down the hall into a small room with white walls. There was a camera in the corner and a single, empty table met with two chairs in the center of the room. Set in to one wall was a large two-way mirror.

  I sat. Anderson looked at me with regret and closed the door.

  After a minute, Stone sauntered in. She didn’t look as angry, but she did look triumphant, superiority glowing on every inch of her face. I expected her to waltz in and grab the chair opposite me, spin it around backward and straddle it like some hotshot, lesbian cowboy. She didn’t. She just stood there in the corner, leaning against the wall with her arms folded across her chest.

  I couldn’t help but think back to the school just a few hours earlier and how in a similar room the conversation had shifted in my favor. This time, I didn’t expect to be so lucky. She had my hands tied. Well, cuffed.

  “I got you,” she said, as though listening to my thoughts. “You finally crossed the line.”

  “Finally?” I said. “Where have you been?”

  “Keep talking. We’re recording this. We’ll use it against you in court.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll never make it to court. The mob has hitters. I’m a dead man if I squeal. They’ll be saying, ‘Jonothan Swyftt swims with the fishes.’”

  Her look was vacant. “Joke all you want.”

  “I think this whole thing’s a joke.”

  “You think murder is a joke?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. Play back the security tapes.”

  “Too bad for you the cameras weren’t online yet. They were scheduled to be set-up tomorrow afternoon for the grand opening on Monday.”

  I’d be lying if I said my hopes didn’t sink just a little. I grasped at straws. “Ape was there. He saw it. He was attacked, too.”

  “Your hairy buddy? All that proves is that you and your friend ganged up on some escaped invalid….”

  “It was his uncle.”

  “Keep telling stories, Swyftt. We have you on a laundry list of charges that include breaking and entering, vandalism, murder in the first. And given the new jacket we just confiscated, we could add larceny to the list. You’ll go away for a very long time.”

  “Is that how you treat a hero?” I asked. “I’m still waiting on my lobster dinner.”

  “Lobster dinner?” she said, confusion sweeping across her.

  “I thought you told…no, wait. Scratch that part. But I’ll still take it if you don’t mind.”

  “Maybe as a last meal. Before you get the chair.”

  “I’m not getting the chair.”

  “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Go ask the parents of the little girl in the apartment, love. Tenth floor, fire escape on the alley side.”

  “Why, what are they going to say?”

  “That their daughter is still there.” Her eyes narrowed. “My hairy buddy and I followed his uncle, the escaped invalid, to the apartment building where we witnessed him attempt to kidnap that little girl from her bedroom window. We stopped him, thank you very much.”

  “And the parents saw this?”

  “No, but they’ll tell you someone shot out their daughter’s window.”

  “That would be you?”

  I smiled.

  “You shot at a little girl?”

  “No. I shot at a psycho trying to steal a little girl.” I chose not to mention I did so while he was holding her; I didn’t think that would have helped my chances any. “Talk to the parents. They’ll verify the story. The little girl will tell you about her imaginary friend.”

  “Why do I care about her imaginary friend?”

  “Adam Gables had one. So did Julie Easter. And I have it on good authority that at least one other did as well.”

  “What does that mean, good authority?”

  Dared I tell her about Paddy O’Brien? Would I just sound crazy at that point? “Look, there’s too much there to just be coincidence. You gonna check on it or not?”

  Stone didn’t say anything.

  “Fine,” I said. “If the past – Krueger and Lochmeyer, those cults, the demon possessions – if it all meant nothing…”

  Her eyes closed, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. She turned to the mirror and asked her reflection, “Did you get that? Run a check, get the parents on the phone or send a unit down there. Tenth floor, window on the alley side.”

  “And Arthur broke into the sporting goods store. Not me.”

  “Arthur?”

  “The dead guy. I saw you take his body out of there.”

  “You mean the guy you killed?”

  “I didn’t kill him,” I said. “I never pulled the trigger. Did you find a gun near me?”

  “No. But that means very little. You could’ve stashed it.”

  “Yeah, right before I passed out.” She didn’t seem amused. “Alright, fine. What about me?”

  “What about you?”

  “The cuts and bruises, the blood, my fucking shoulder was dislocated, I had to pop it back in myself. I could probably use a sodding doctor.”

  “You attacked an old man and he defended himself.”

  “A fucking invalid in a wheelchair attacked me, tore up my coat, and threw me across the room? I’m sorry, Nat, but it’s time you admit that there are other things out there that you can’t explain with police tactics and so-called logical reasoning. There’s something else going on here, and you’re not seeing it…”

  “Oh, yeah? Like what? What am I missing, Swyftt?”

  “The fucking kids – all of them for the past few months – they’re all connected.”

  “We know that,” she said, annoyed. “Why do you think the FBI has been brought in? We just don’t know the connection yet, and I’m not buying the floating theory of a connected web of homeless people.”

  “No. It’s something else. It’s one thing. I talked to it. It spoke to me, told me to bow to it or some shit.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s one thing’?”

  “It’s a demon, probably. It seems to take possession of people, speaks through them, controls them.”

  “A demon?!” she said, amazed. “Like a fallen angel?”

  “Demons aren’t angels.” I should be instructing a group of first graders; this was Hunter 101. “And for the record, Angel’s don’t possess people, they have bodies. Demons are the spirits of the Nephilim that God destroyed with the flood. Technically, they’re the sons of angels…”

  “Nephilim?”

  “You ever read the Bible? They’re giants in Exodus.”

  “Demon
s…biblical giants….” She looked at me like I was crazy. Then she looked at the mirror and said, “Are you getting this?” She turned back to me. “You’re right, maybe you won’t get the chair. They don’t usually give the death penalty to insane people.”

  “What about the demon possessions before? You saw those.”

  “That was different. They weren’t trying to kill anyone, and they weren’t used as a thinly-veiled attempt at your alibi.”

  “Fuck it,” I said. “Lock me the fuck up. When the killings continue, it’ll be on you. You don’t have to believe me, but it doesn’t make me any less right.”

  “Okay, fine,” she said. “Let’s say I buy the demon thing.” She looked up at the ceiling for a minute and put her hands up. “I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. This is what you do to me, Swyftt. You drive me crazy!” She took a deep breath, leaned her hands against her side of the table, bowed her head, and looked up at me. “Obviously, I think you’re crazy.”

  “Noted. I could be, but not about this.”

  “Fine. Say I believe you. Why do you think it’s a demon?”

  “At first I wasn’t sure, but the way it spoke suggests a demon. ‘Who hath…’” I struggled to remember the words it had used. “’Who hath…prevented me, that I should repay him?’ I think that’s what he said.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It’s from chapter forty-one Job.” She looked unimpressed. “Job’s believed to be the oldest written book of the Bible.”

  “And you just happened to know that?”

  “I was a priest. I know the Bible. And the fact that this thing is quoting…”

  “You know I don’t believe a word you’re saying,” she said. There was a knock on the door behind her, and then it opened. A uniformed officer stood there, peeking in just a little, clearly not wanting to intrude, and he handed her a piece of paper and the tree bark in the sandwich baggie. “Thank you,” she said, and he closed the door.

  She tossed the baggie on the table in front of me and said, “Do you recognize this?”

  “It’s the bark from the tree that trashed the store.”