Low Red Moon

by Kiernan, Caitlin R.

  “Right,” Detective Downs replies, smiling an uncomfortable smile to show off his wide nicotine-stained teeth. “Dr. Silvey, it’s nice to meet you.” She releases his hand, and he stares at it a moment, as if maybe he’s counting his fingers to make sure they’re all still there. “Too bad it’s not under more pleasant circumstances.”

  The detective’s stuffy office smells like stale cigarettes and staler coffee, the walls painted the lifeless color of oatmeal, and there are too many pieces of furniture crammed into much too small a space: his desk and three chairs, a bookshelf and metal filing cabinet, a coatrack stuffed into one corner. The heat’s blowing from a small vent overhead, and Chance has already started to sweat.

  “So, what are you a doctor of, Dr. Silvey?” the detective asks, and then Deacon lays a sheet of paper on the desk in front of him, the address from the manila envelope the girl gave him.

  “Yeah, what’s this?”

  “That’s the best I can do,” Deacon says. “You need to go to that address this afternoon. I think you’ll find something there that will help you locate the killer.”

  “You think? Have you been holding out on us, Deacon?”

  “It doesn’t always happen right away. I told you that before.”

  The detective picks up the piece of paper and leans back in his chair, chews thoughtfully at his thin lower lip while he reads the address printed there aloud. He glances skeptically at Deacon.

  “Is that all? An address?”

  “Sometimes it’s a whole lot less,” Deacon replies.

  “But you didn’t actually see the killer? That’s what I’m asking you, Deacon.”

  “I didn’t see very much.”

  “But you saw something more than this address?”

  Chance shifts uncomfortably in the chair, wishing she’d used the restroom before being herded into the detective’s office, wishing someone would turn off the goddamned heat.

  “Do you really believe he saw anything at all?” she asks, and the detective shrugs and rocks forward in his chair.

  “There wasn’t much,” Deacon says again. “A white man in his forties. He has a tattoo on his back, a swastika.”

  “You’re telling me this guy’s some sort of Nazi?”

  Deacon takes a very deep breath, like a swimmer before a dive into cold, deep water. “No,” he says. “Not necessarily. The swastika goes back a lot farther than the Nazis. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean to him. It could have another meaning.”

  “Is that all?”

  “He wears a Masonic ring, and I think his eyes are blue. Blue or gray.”

  “And we’re gonna find him if we go to this address?” Detective Downs asks and taps the sheet of paper.

  “That’s not what I said. I’m not sure what you’ll find there, but it’s something important.”

  “You never answered my question, Detective,” Chance says.

  “Do you believe he really sees anything, Dr. Silvey?”

  “I’m still trying to figure that out,” she replies, and the detective smiles at her.

  “Well then, I guess that puts us both in pretty much the same leaky boat. We’ll see what’s waiting for us at this address here, and then maybe I can answer your question and you can answer mine.”

  “I’m sorry there’s not more,” Deacon says and wipes a bead of sweat off the tip of his nose.

  “I’ll tell you what, man, I should have my fucking head examined for letting myself get involved with this crazy hoodoo horseshit in the first goddamn place.”

  “You called Deacon,” Chance reminds the detective. “Not the other way around.”

  “That I did, Dr. Silvey, but I promise you it sure as hell wasn’t my idea.”

  “So whose idea was it?” she asks, and Deacon takes her hand and squeezes it gently.

  “Is there anything else, Detective Downs?” he asks.

  Chance turns and glares at him, suddenly too hot and pissed off about too many things at once to focus, to turn her anger into words, but she pulls her hand free, enough sweat that it slips easily from Deacon’s grip.

  “Actually, there is. I suppose I really should have mentioned this first. You know a young lady named Sadie Jasper, lives over on the ass end of Twenty-second, down by the projects?”

  “Yeah,” Deacon replies, and Chance catches the guarded hint of apprehension in his voice. “I do. Why?”

  “There was a fire last night. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it on the news this morning. Maybe you don’t watch—”

  “But Sadie’s okay,” Deacon says, as if he already knows, as if he has some say in the matter, and the detective nods his head.

  “She’s alive. A little worse for the wear, but the docs say she’ll be fine. She’s a lucky girl, though. Half the damn building burned to the ground before the fire department got things under control.”

  “Jesus,” Deacon whispers. “I saw her yesterday afternoon.”

  “Was anyone else hurt?” Chance asks, and now she reaches for Deacon’s hand, but he pulls away.

  “There was one fatality, but we don’t think it was the fire did him in. The coroner says someone cut the old man’s throat before the fire ever got to him.”

  Chance looks at Deacon a moment and then back to Detective Downs. “Cut his throat,” she says.

  “Yeah. And broke a few bones in the bargain. But, and here’s the thing, Deke, it looks like Miss Jasper was the one started the fire in the first place. No one’s pressing charges yet, but I think it’s only a matter of time.”

  “That’s fucking crazy,” Deacon says. “Why the hell would Sadie have done something like that?”

  “Well, she claims someone was trying to kill her and she did it to protect herself. Claims a blonde woman broke in and handcuffed her to a radiator in her kitchen.”

  “Come on, baby,” Deacon says, standing up, helping Chance to her feet, and then he turns back to the detective. “Where is she, which hospital?”

  “They’ve got her stashed over at St. Vincent’s, but listen, man, I’ve still got some questions here I need answers for. Sadie Jasper says you told her about the case, that we’d brought you in on it. I thought we had an understanding—”

  “I don’t remember making any promises,” Deacon says, reaching for the door leading back out into the hallway. “Maybe you’ve been thinking just a little bit too hard.”

  “Deacon, she says this woman’s looking for you.”

  Chance is already halfway out the door, and she stops and stares first at Deacon and the detective. “What?” she asks, not at all sure she wants to hear the answer, but the asking almost automatic, like the new layers added to her dread. “What do you mean, she’s looking for Deacon?”

  “Hey, I’m just telling you guys what Sadie Jasper told us. She says the woman was going to try to kill Deacon. She also seems to think this woman’s the one who killed Charles Ellis.”

  “Who?”

  “Soda,” Deacon says.

  Chance takes a step back into the office, back towards the detective behind his desk, and Deacon lays a hand on her shoulder.

  “You’re the one who got him mixed up in this,” she says.

  “And I assure you we’re prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect the both of you, but—”

  “I’ll call you later,” Deacon says. “I’ve got to see about Sadie now. After I’ve talked to her, then I’ll talk to you.”

  “Fine, Deke, but listen, we both know the clock’s ticking on this one, right? You understand that?”

  “Right now, Detective, I don’t understand much of anything at all. But I’ll call you, soon as I can.”

  “You do that,” the detective says coolly, big man speaking with the glacial composure of authority. “I’ll be waiting.”

  And then Deacon puts an arm around Chance and leads her out of the tiny overheated office, and in just a little while they’re back outside, Deacon digging the keys to the Impala out of his pants pocket, the keys
on his Bullwinkle J. Moose key chain, and Chance remembers how badly she needs to piss.

  “It only hurts when I breathe,” Sadie says, a grimace where a smile was meant to be, and Chance gets up and goes to the window looking out and down on the city.

  “I’m so sorry,” Deacon says again, and Sadie closes her eyes.

  “Why?” she says. “You aren’t the psychotic bitch that tried to kill me. There’s nothing for you to be sorry for.”

  The air smells like disinfectant and the big, gaudy bouquet of flowers on the table across the room, yellow and purple daisies, baby’s breath and ferns, flowers from Sadie’s parents in Mobile. The much smaller bouquet of white roses Deacon and Chance bought downstairs in the hospital gift shop is still lying in Sadie’s lap, wrapped in tissue paper and cellophane. Sunlight streams in warm through the parted curtains, eclipsing the cold and lifeless fluorescents set into the ceiling.

  “Anyway, Mom and Pop will be up here tonight. I think that’s the worst part,” Sadie says and opens her drug-clouded eyes again, glances at Chance standing at the window.

  “Deacon, why don’t you get her to sit down. Her feet must be killing her.”

  “I’m fine,” Chance says. “I don’t need to sit down.”

  “We can come back later, if you don’t feel like talking right now,” Deacon says, and Sadie’s watery white-blue eyes drift his way.

  “No. There are things you need to know.”

  “It can wait, Sadie.”

  “No, Deke, I don’t think so.”

  Deacon leans back in the hard plastic chair, molded plastic almost the same color as the ugly pea-green walls. Better to look at the floor beneath her bed than at Sadie in her white plaster cast and bandages, the strawberry-red and violet-black bruises on her face, so he stares at the tile instead.

  “I was right,” she tells him. “She thinks she’s a werewolf.”

  Chance sighs a loud, long exasperated sigh. “I’m going for a walk,” she says. “I’ll be back later.” Deacon nods his head, but doesn’t do anything to stop her, knows better than that by now, and the very last thing Sadie needs is to have to listen to the two of them bickering.

  “Thanks for the roses,” Sadie tells Chance as she walks past the foot of the hospital bed. “You’re welcome. I hope you feel better soon,” Chance replies, and Deacon can tell she’s at least trying to sound like she means it.

  “I won’t be much longer,” Deacon says.

  “Take however much time you need. I just—” but she doesn’t finish the sentence, leaves the room as quickly as she can, and neither Deacon nor Sadie says anything else until she’s gone. He sits listening to the sound of her footsteps growing fainter and farther away, the squeaky soles of her tennis shoes against the shiny, sterile floors.

  “Someone’s not a happy camper,” Sadie whispers, and Deacon shrugs.

  “Don’t take it personally,” he says. “This whole thing’s got Chance bent out of shape. I can’t really say I blame her.”

  “She knows what’s going on? You told her?”

  “A little,” Deacon says, but Not enough, he thinks, even less than he’s told Sadie.

  Sadie presses a red button and an unseen motor whirs and raises the bed a few more inches, so she’s almost sitting upright now, and Deacon tells her to be careful, take it easy.

  “Would you believe this is the first time I’ve been in a hospital since I was born?” Sadie asks him. “I’ve never broken a bone in my whole life. Guess I’m making up for it in spades, huh?”

  “You don’t have to be so damned nonchalant about it, Sadie. You could have been killed.”

  “That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

  “That’s because it’s the fucking truth. You know the fire took out half the building?”

  “I fell out the kitchen window, didn’t I?” Sadie asks him and shuts her eyes again. “It’s so weird how I keep forgetting things.”

  “It’ll pass. You just need to rest.”

  “She handcuffed me to the radiator, Deke. If that old prick Farris hadn’t come along, she really would have killed me. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Deacon shifts uneasily in his chair, unsure what to say next. “They found a body,” he says. “A man. His throat had been cut. They didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” she says and opens her eyes. “They haven’t told me much of anything at all. The police came in and asked me a lot of questions. I suppose I probably shouldn’t have answered them. Anyway, my father’s bringing his lawyer with him.”

  “So you did start the fire?”

  “What the hell else was I supposed to do? I’m sad to say my ninja powers ain’t exactly what they used to be.”

  Deacon laughs, something good, something unstained, to drain a little of the tension from the antiseptic air. Sadie laughs, too, then moans and settles back into her pillow.

  “But you want to know the god’s honest truth?” she asks, her words slurring together slightly. “I thought I was dead, Deacon. I thought, there’s no fucking way I’m getting out of this alive, not a chance, not a snowball’s chance in hell, but maybe I can take this bitch out with me. Maybe I can at least keep her from hurting anyone else. But I didn’t, did I?”

  “It doesn’t look that way. Then again, you’re not dead.”

  “No,” she says. “No, I’m not.”

  “How’s that bum wing feeling?” he asks, points at Sadie’s left arm, and Sadie frowns at the cast that extends from her shoulder all the way down to her wrist, where it ends in a mass of bandages and drainage tubes.

  “You don’t want to know. They’re afraid I’m gonna lose the use of that hand, at least for a while. I guess I’m going to have to learn to hunt and peck with my right hand.”

  “That bad?” Deacon asks, though he can see for himself, and who really needs to know all the gory details.

  “It’s a wonder I didn’t tear my goddamned hand off. Dislocated my shoulder, fractured my collarbone, broke three ribs, broke my wrist and three of the bones in my hand.”

  “Metacarpals,” Deacon says, because he can’t think of anything else to say.

  “Yeah, right, metacarpals. But that’s not the worst of it. You ever heard of ‘degloving’?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, well, me neither. But that’s why they had to operate last night. My hand slipped out of the cuff, and the firemen say that’s probably what saved my life, but I peeled loose a big flap of meat on the back of my hand. They’re talking about skin grafts,” and her voice cracks, and she shuts her eyes again.

  “But you’re alive,” Deacon says.

  “Yeah, but she’s still out there somewhere. Christ, Deke, I thought I was tough. I mean, I thought I’d seen some shit, you know? But now, fuck.”

  “It’s over, Sadie. I want you to stop thinking about her and worry about getting well.”

  “She’s not just insane, Deacon. I wasn’t even sure I believed in evil before last night, not real evil, but now…”

  And Deacon takes a tissue from the box beside the bed and wipes Sadie’s face, the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and winding their way down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to cry. I hate crying in front of people.”

  “I think you’ve earned it,” Deacon says and dabs at a wet spot on her chin. Then Sadie grabs his arm with her good right hand, holds on tight, and her eyes are open wide now.

  “Listen to me, Deke. It doesn’t matter if this woman’s really some kind of werewolf or not. It only matters what she thinks she is, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he replies, trying hard not to sound as anxious as her spooky blue eyes and the urgency in her voice are beginning to make him feel.

  “Did you ever see that movie, The Company of Wolves?”

  “Sure,” Deacon says, and he wipes more tears from her face. “I saw it.”

  “Remember what the old woman told her granddaughter? She said that the worst wolves are hairy on the inside. And j
ust before I fell, right before the explosion, I saw inside her, Deacon, through her eyes. Her eyes are yellow—”

  “Sadie, you need to calm down now, okay? You’re just going to make yourself sicker.”

  “She kept calling me Little Red Cap,” and now Sadie’s almost hysterical, and there’s no point trying to wipe away all the tears, the clear liquid running from her nose. “Do you know what that means? You told me parts of Soda’s body were missing, didn’t you, and there were bite marks?”

  And Deacon reaches for the call button above the bed, pushes it, and Sadie’s still hanging on to his hand, hanging on like she’s too afraid to ever let him go again. The last thing keeping her from slipping off the edge of the world, and “Sadie,” he says, “I’ve called the nurse,” and he smells oranges and rotting fish.

  “Little Red Cap,” Sadie sobs desperately, squeezing his hand now so hard that it’s starting to hurt. “It is a moon, Deacon, a red moon like an eye—”

  “I’ve called the nurse,” he says again, and a flash then, blinding light that isn’t light pouring out around him, light that’s somehow the opposite of light, swallowing him in searing, brilliant jaws. And now he’s the one holding on, as the flash scalds away the world, and he’s watching Sadie on the windowsill, and the blonde woman where the curtain of plastic beads used to be.

  She smiles for him, for Sadie, and That’s where the light’s coming from, he thinks, the light that isn’t light, black hole ejecta, and the woman takes a step towards him.

  “O, what land is the Land of Dreams?” she asks, smiling. “Father, O Father! What do we here, in this land of unbelief and fear?”

  On the countertop, the microwave throws orange-white sparks and buzzes like there’s a swarm of red wasps locked up inside its guts.

  “The Land of Dreams is better far,” the woman says and sniffs the gas-fouled air. “You have my key, Deacon Silvey,” she growls, “but I’ll take it from you soon.” And then the wasps explode from the microwave and set the air on fire with their poison barbs.

  “Mr. Silvey!” the nurse says, shaking him so hard the world opens up wide and sucks him back into the hospital room. The black light gone, and now there’s only the irreconcilable mix of sun and fluorescence, and the nurse shakes him again.