Right to the Kill (Harmony Black Book 5)

by Craig Schaefer

  “He told us this was bootlegger territory during Prohibition,” Jessie said. “I bet that’s where they used to hide the hooch.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Harmony’s lenses tightened on the ship’s deck as they neared the mouth of the cove. “And what are they hiding there now?”

  They were butchering the dead men.

  It was fast work. Efficient. Not their first time. The deck was washed in pink froth as they used hacksaws and hammers and chisels, breaking down human remains into anonymous meat. They hammered out teeth, yanked fingernails, stripping off bloody clothing and shoving all the refuse into black plastic garbage sacks. Blades rhythmically sawed into bone and muscle, attacking weak joints and tearing away limbs one chunk at a time.

  The boat stopped in the heart of the cove. One of the townies stood at the prow and lifted up a horn. It was made from bone, like a trumpet but too thin, too long, with a bizarre pipe-cleaner bend near its flared tip. He put it to his lips, and even at this distance, Harmony could hear the mournful cry it let out. It was the last bellow of a dying bull, heart pierced by a matador’s lance.

  He blew it twice more. Then the world went silent.

  Another townie sauntered to the back of the boat. He carried one of the dead men’s heads, its toothless mouth dangling slack on a shattered jaw, gripping it by the hair and swinging it casually at his side. He pulled his arm back and let it fly, tossing the severed head out over the waves.

  The water erupted. It splashed in all directions as a mermaid soared upward, toothy face-petals wide and coppery tail glistening. She caught the head in midair with a single bite, spun with her arms graceful above her head, did a flip, and dove. The beast kicked up another spray of foam as she vanished beneath the surface with her prize.

  31.

  It was over as soon as it began, one swift moment of frenzied hunger, no evidence left behind but the rippling of the restless brine. It happened so fast Harmony could almost doubt her own eyes. Almost.

  There were more shapes under the water. Sleek, sinuous, serpentine as they circled the boat at a safe distance.

  “It’s a goddamn nest,” Jessie whispered. “Now we know where Cranston got his laboratory pet. Are they breeding the things?”

  “They’re training them.”

  Harmony stared through the binoculars. The boat began to crawl, a slow vanish into the shadows at the maw of the cave. The townie at the back of the deck sluggishly tossed body parts into the foam, leaving an uneven trail of carnage in their wake.

  They watched. And waited. Half an hour later, the boat returned, emerging from the cave. The remains of the fishermen were gone. Nothing but the abattoir of the deck and the sticky red hands of the townies offered any proof that they’d ever existed at all. As they emerged, the man up front gave another three slow, long blows of his bone horn. The shapes under the water moved aside, giving the boat a wide berth. One of the townies on the deck delicately cradled a jar in his arms. It was filled with black ichor that took on a rainbow sheen in the fading light, like a spilled oil slick. Harmony remembered that same color on the floor of Cranston’s lab, smeared in the wake of the dying mermaid.

  “Blood,” Harmony said. “They’re harvesting blood.”

  “We need to get into that cave,” Jessie said.

  “We need one of those trumpet things. Could be some kind of ritual gesture, but I don’t think so. It felt more like a trainer’s tool. Notice how they didn’t come near the boat?”

  “And they do tricks.” As the boat vanished into the swirling gray mists, Jessie pushed herself to her feet. “It’s like SeaWorld but with dismembered bodies and monsters from another dimension. So, basically, just slightly less fun than the real thing. Whether Cranston’s hiding in there or not, we are definitely shutting this sideshow down.”

  Harmony winced as she shoved herself up on the rocky plateau. Jagged wet stone left welts on her palms. She looked toward the mainland, where the murky blob of the sun slowly sank beyond the stormy clouds. Night was coming on fast.

  “Let’s get the boat back before anyone notices it’s missing,” she said. “Think we should rendezvous with the team?”

  Jessie thought about it, then shook her head.

  “Let’s do some more recon, see if we can scare up one of those trumpets for ourselves. We’ll move a lot easier in the dark. Besides, I want to get inside that church with the mermaid windows. Call me crazy, but something tells me these people are not actually faithful Presbyterians.”

  * * *

  They took the boat back to the lighthouse, careful to leave everything just the way they’d found it. One way or another, they were going to be making a return trip.

  Graykettle barely acknowledged the night. One or two Victorian-styled streetlamps cast lonely puddles of light here and there, but most of the village’s streets were content to nestle in the dark. No lights glowed beyond the cracked windows of its abandoned manses, and the stores closed their shutters at dusk.

  Harmony and Jessie kept to the shore, moving fast and quiet, searching for signs of life. There was an old boathouse by the docks, long and tall and sagging on its worm-eaten timbers. They let themselves in through the open barn door. Moonlight filtered in from above, through a ragged gap where the ceiling timbers had caved in. Boats up on trestles and shrouded under tarps stood in long, uneven rows.

  Harmony peeked under the tarps as they walked, reading names in jaunty, bubbly fonts. My Second Mortgage stood side by side with Money Pit and Have Fish, Need Beer. These weren’t working craft, for professional fishermen. They were pleasure boats. And at the end of the line, hastily dumped under an oilcloth shroud, sat the Aquaholic. They hadn’t even hosed the deck down yet, and the air under the tarp stank of clotted blood.

  Jessie’s phone glowed in the dark. “April? Pull something for me, ASAP. I need missing-persons and accidental-death statistics for this entire county and all the outlying areas. Compare them to the statewide average for the last few years.”

  They waited in the musty silence while April and Kevin crunched the numbers.

  “Thought so. Thanks.” Jessie hung up and looked to Harmony. “Want to guess?”

  “Three times the statewide average?”

  “Four. There are an awful lot of ‘boating accidents’ in the vicinity of this village.” Jessie hooked her fingers to make air quotes. “The kind that end with the boat and all hands presumably lost at sea, never to be found.”

  Harmony gestured to the slumbering boats, rusting away in the dark.

  “Think we found them. Want to hit the church?”

  Jessie squinted up at the moon, a slice of bone white on the far side of the caved-in roof.

  “Let’s get a little closer to midnight. I’m starved, and I want to rub shoulders with the locals, see if we can get any intel out of ’em. Let’s kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Some of that world-famous peach cobbler?”

  “You read my mind,” Jessie said.

  * * *

  Sally Ann’s restaurant was a spot of soft light at the corner of a five-way intersection, close to the heart of town and a stone’s throw from the spire of the church. A welcoming chime jangled as Jessie and Harmony stepped through the front door. The place had a country-kitchen vibe, old wooden tables draped in gingham and vintage clocks hanging on the yellow-painted walls. A framed needlepoint by the door read Not Perfect, Just Blessed. The air was warm and smelled of huckleberry with a faint chemical tang drifting from a scented candle in a jar by the cashier’s station.

  They weren’t the only customers. Locals hunched over scattered tables in twos and threes, still dressed for work—overalls and dirty hip waders—and dug into their dinners. Mostly chowder, with a few burgers and grilled-cheese sandwiches rounding out the menu. Every face, all walleyes and broad, froggish mouths, turned their way as their conversations died.

  Sally Ann was the only welcoming face in the room. She rushed up like she might give them a hug, holding out her arms and
a pair of laminated menus. “Look who’s here! New friends.”

  “You tempted us,” Jessie said. “Couldn’t stay away.”

  “And I’m darn glad. I don’t get to share my cookin’ with newcomers all that often. This is when I get to show off. Come here, come here, let’s get you settled.”

  The locals apparently decided there wasn’t a problem after all. They looked away, back to their meals and each other, and the bubbling thrum of mingled voices returned. Jessie listened, intent, as Sally Ann led them to a two-seater table midway into the room. From what she could pick up, nobody was discussing nefarious plots, just comparing last week’s catch and debating the virtues of competing motor-oil brands. She sat down across from Harmony, and Sally Ann passed out the menus.

  “How’s the chowder?” Harmony asked.

  Sally Ann’s nose delicately wrinkled. She dropped her voice.

  “Oh, it’s fine, honey, but you know…most of my regulars get it because it’s the cheapest thing on the menu. Cheapest, but not the best.”

  “What if we wanted the best?” Jessie said.

  Her smile lit up the room. “Darlin’, assuming you’re not a vegetarian, you have got to try my beef brisket. It’s my grandma’s recipe, and everybody swears by it.”

  “I am most definitely not a vegetarian,” Jessie said. “And sold.”

  “Same here,” Harmony said.

  Jessie glanced to the drink menu. No liquor license. “And I’ll have a Moxie with that.”

  “Diet Coke, please,” Harmony added.

  Sally Ann took the menus and disappeared into the back, through a swinging door.

  They couldn’t talk about the case, not in earshot of men who might be in on Judah’s plot. They stuck to their cover instead, swapping small talk about their imaginary road trip so far. The two women shared the natural rhythm of dance partners, picking up each other’s leads and responding in kind; from the seed of a sidelong comment, they ended up reminiscing about a blown tire on the highway and the pervy tow-truck driver who had come to their rescue. They crafted the details and passed them back and forth as they embellished the tale. If anyone was listening in, they’d come off exactly as they intended: two long-time friends on a slightly ill-planned vacation, touring the coast with harmless, guileless glee.

  Jessie’s glee silently died as Sally Ann set their plates before them.

  “It looks amazing,” Jessie said. It really did. Perfectly cooked strips of beef brisket nestled on a gingham-patterned plate, alongside a hefty slice of cornbread. A puddle of baked beans rounded out the meal, flecked with hearty, fatty shavings of fried bacon.

  “You just let me know if you need anything at all,” Sally Ann said. She retreated to the cashier’s station.

  Harmony reached for her fork. Jessie was lost for a moment, the room rippling around her as the scent of the meal rose up on a gust of steam.

  “Stop,” Jessie hissed.

  Harmony’s eyes flicked up from her plate, uncertain.

  “Buy me a second,” Jessie whispered. She gave a subtle nod to Harmony’s soda. “Fumble with your straw or something.”

  Harmony scooped up her straw and wrestled with the paper wrapper, taking her time getting it open, while Jessie quickly sliced off a bite of the brisket. She popped it between her lips and chewed. It was perfect. Juicy, fresh, exploding with flavor on her tongue, cooked in rich spices that didn’t overwhelm the natural flavor of the smoked meat.

  She leaned close across the table.

  “Harmony. Listen to me. Get up and go to the bathroom. Wait five, maybe ten minutes. If anyone’s in there, make it sound like you’re throwing up. Come back out, tell me you’re sick, and we’ll pay the check and go.”

  Harmony’s brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”

  “This isn’t beef,” Jessie whispered.

  Harmony’s gaze slowly dropped to the meat on her plate. Jessie saw eyes turned their way in her peripheral vision. Some of the locals were watching them. Some with idiot grins on their wide mouths, others murmuring, giving their buddies elbow jabs.

  It was a joke. A sick prank. Harmony looked back to Jessie. “What are you going to do while I’m in there?”

  “I’m going to eat my dinner, so we don’t look suspicious,” Jessie said.

  “You can’t—”

  “We’re outnumbered, and if they think for one second that we’re onto their game, we’re as good as dead.” She held her partner’s gaze. “You know damn well this isn’t the first time I’ve eaten human flesh. Don’t pretend otherwise.”

  32.

  Harmony eased her chair back. She put an unsteady wobble in her step as she headed for the bathroom door, already selling the lie.

  For Jessie, forcing herself to eat wasn’t the hard part. Pacing herself was. She took another bite of brisket and wanted to grab it off the plate with her bare fingers, cramming it into her mouth as fast as she could, gobbling it all down. The wolf was rolling around in the soil of her heart, tail wagging, legs kicking, enraptured. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths between bites. Her ears picked up a cruel chuckle from the edge of the room. Idiot human laughing at his own joke, thinking he was feeding her something bad.

  “How’s that brisket doing ya?” Sally Ann asked.

  Jessie’s eyes flicked open. The hostess was standing tableside, wearing a big self-indulgent smile.

  Bite her throat out, the wolf whispered, its warm wet muzzle pressed to her ear. Right here. Imagine the shock on their faces, so much fun. Then the one at the table three feet behind her, to the left, with the gun in his pocket. You can jump that far. Take his eyes, drop him, can’t shoot without eyes, he’ll keep for later. Then snap his friend’s neck—

  Jessie forced a clenched-teeth smile. Her hands clung to the arms of her stiff wooden chair, squeezing, fighting not to tremble.

  “I can honestly tell you,” Jessie said, “that this is the best meal I’ve had in years.”

  Harmony emerged from the bathroom. Still woozy on her feet, looking drawn and pale. She stood beside Sally Ann, not sitting back down.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to Jessie, “I have to go lie down. I’m…not doing well. It just hit me out of nowhere.”

  Jessie pushed her chair back. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  “You know that convenience-store sandwich I grabbed on the road?”

  Jessie sighed. “I told you that place looked shady. I’m sorry, Sally Ann, could we grab the check?”

  Sally Ann looked distressed as she glanced between Harmony and the pristine plate.

  “Aw, honey, you haven’t touched a bite.”

  “I’m sorry, I just—” Harmony rubbed her stomach, frowning. “I don’t think I can. Are you open for breakfast?”

  “I understand, believe me. Got some bad clams once and that was the end of me for a week. And yes we are, bright and early at seven sharp. I hope I get to see you ladies again before you leave town! Let’s settle you up at the counter…”

  Jessie paid cash, laid down a generous tip, and hustled Harmony out and into the dark. She could hear the snickering at her back, soft and mocking.

  “Boardinghouse,” she said.

  Harmony walked alongside her, racing to keep up with her brisk stride. “Are you okay?”

  She could smell Harmony’s blood. So close, like sweet perfume. The wolf whined. It wanted to hurt her. Didn’t understand why it couldn’t. More meat, just as good as the brisket—no, better, fresh, raw and untainted by man’s fire—

  “No,” Jessie said. “I need to get this out of me.”

  The boardinghouse was silent. Their landlady was out or already in bed, and they tiptoed down the hall to their room. Jessie buried herself behind the tiny bathroom door, knelt on a furry lime-green bathmat in front of the toilet, and shoved her fingers down her throat.

  After, she washed her hands and spat in the sink until her mouth went dry. Her heart was still thudding, too fast, too wild, and the room turned in lazy drunk
en circles when she closed her eyes. She stood in the bathroom doorway, silhouetted by the light at her back.

  “You okay?” Harmony asked.

  “I am now.”

  “Are you—” Harmony paused. Of course Jessie was sure what the meat was. She took another tack. “Why would they do that?”

  “From what I could hear? It was a sick joke. They thought it was funny. We’ve got a bigger problem. I didn’t see anyone from the boating party in that room. Different pack of locals.”

  “They’re all in on it,” Harmony said. “The mermaids, whatever Cranston is planning with his mutagen—the entire village is in on it.”

  “One big happy cannibal mermaid death cult,” Jessie said.

  “And if they’re on edge because Cranston is here, even if they might normally let the occasional traveler slip on through, there’s no chance they’re going to let us out of town alive.”

  * * *

  The landlady was waiting up. She sat in the dark of her parlor, knitting, frowning. She’d heard noises from the guest bedroom, an ungodly retching that went on and on. Then Sally Ann had called her, wanting to know if they’d come back, and she got the rest of the story about how one of the girls had taken sick at the restaurant.

  “Oh, she’s sick as a dog all right. She get the house special?”

  “No,” Sally Ann said, “the other one did. Ate it right up, just about licked her plate clean.”

  “Waste of good meat.”

  “Aw, come on, it’s a good laugh is what it is. Besides, circle of life and all that. They abed now?”

  The landlady listened, cupping a hand to her ear.

  “Not a peep. Sound asleep, like as not. You gonna come and collect?”

  “I got church,” Sally Ann said. “I’ll send a few of the boys over, get it done nice and quick.”

  The boys showed up on her doorstep ten minutes later. She watched the windows for their arrival, so they wouldn’t make noise knocking, and they dutifully wiped their galoshes on her front mat. They carried machetes, knives. One had a pitchfork, its tines rusted and warped.