Devil Dead

by Linda Ladd

  Oh, brother. College kids. “I need to take a look at one of your dorm rooms, please.”

  “Yeah, no problem. I’ll show you mine. My roomie’s got World History till eleven.” He wiggled his eyebrows. He smelled strongly of pepperoni pizza and Mountain Dew. Surprising, since it was nine o’clock in the morning.

  “The room is registered to Andrea Quinn. Why don’t you just give me the room number and the key? I’m her cousin from Missouri and thought I’d drop by and say hello. Her dad wants me to pick up a package for him.”

  “Well, I, for one, am very glad you did. My name’s Tommy Belsenich.”

  Claire gave him a big smile and felt very stupid doing it. “Then you won’t mind giving me that key, will you?”

  For the first time, he allowed his eyes to stop crawling around on her face and chest and glanced across the lobby, where Novak was trying very unsuccessfully to look collegiate and blend into the woodwork. “You with that big scary-lookin’ guy over there?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “He gonna mess me up if I make a move on you?”

  “No, but I will.”

  He grinned suggestively, no doubt liking the sound of that and looking about twelve years old doing it, maybe even eleven and a half. “Old guy looks like a real badass. He won’t jump me for talking to you, will he? Promise?”

  Old guy? Jeez, Novak was probably barely into his forties, if that. “I doubt it, but I don’t know him all that well. So how about looking up the room number and giving me the key and stop with the flirting and make it real quick-like, huh? Don’t you have some studying to do, something like that?”

  “I really shouldn’t give it to you. It’s against the rules.”

  Claire just stared at him. “I’m in a hurry, Tommy.”

  Tommy looked around, glanced again at Novak. Novak was right on. This kid was wary of him. Even from a distance. Most people probably gave him a wide berth, probably avoided getting into elevators with him, too. Not a bad thing, that. Claire might be willing to get into the elevator with him if she didn’t know him, but she had two guns and a bowie knife concealed on her person.

  Then something extraordinary happened. A thought seemed to dawn on Tommy’s sunburned appraisal of her face. He said, “Heeey, waaaait a minute. I know who you are.”

  Crap.

  “You’re that hotshot detective that got that serial killer last year, you know, down there in the bayous. Down around Thibodaux. I forget the name.”

  “No, I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I hail from Missouri.”

  “Man, you look just like her pictures do. All the guys were talkin’ about how tough she is. Man, she had to go through some serious shit before she brought that crazy guy down. You didn’t hear tell of it?”

  “I’m not from around here. How about that key, Tommy?”

  “She’s not as hot as you, though. Nobody’s as hot as you, babe.”

  Oh, God, this dude needed a cold shower in the worst way. Maybe two. But this was a college dorm, after all, where everybody needed cold showers every minute of every day. “So? You gonna help me out or not?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, if you’ll give me your number.”

  “Sure, why not?” She scribbled down the number for Nancy Gill’s morgue down in Lafourche Parish. “Just ask for Sally.”

  “Oh, Sally, cool, I like that name. Real retro.”

  “How about that key, Tommy? Time’s awastin’. Gotta catch a flight in an hour.”

  To her relief, he turned around, got it off the hook, and handed it over. “I’ll be callin’ you up,” he promised with a leer that was really rather impressive, if one cared for Simon Legree or Darth Vader. “We are gonna have us some fun next time you’re down here in the Big Easy. I’ll show you things you’ve never seen before, and that’s a promise, sweetie.”

  “Oh, that’s just so exciting. Can’t wait, Tommy.”

  When she walked back across the lobby, Novak stood up from a student chair that he’d crammed his huge self into. “See, you’re charming enough to get a key outta that kid quick enough.”

  “That whole conversation was highly unpleasant, Novak. And I kid you not.”

  “Yeah, it usually is. You did get the key, right?”

  “Sure did. Let’s go see if Andrea’s home and just not answering her phone so she can worry her parents into early graves.”

  Witch Way

  After the night when Diana was allowed to stay in the Sanctuary with Luna for the very first time, she felt so happy because Luna taught her how to pray to all the spirits of the woods and trees and water and air. It made her feel big and grown up, and not like a little baby who didn’t know anything and couldn’t ever remember anything. And now that Mommy was Luna, she’d gotten real nice and smiley and told her all about bells and books and candles and covens that met in the Sanctuary once in a while and the animal spirits in the woods and how they asked all the animals they killed for permission to take their lives before they could eat their meat and then stuff their bodies in her mommy’s taxidermy workshop out in the old shed. She loved all the magic chants and spells and ceremonies, and she felt like Harry Potter when he first learned how to do magic at that Hogwarts School. Luna said that she was going to teach Diana everything she knew about Wicca and make her into a good little Wiccan to help her perform all her rituals to the Moon Goddess and the Horned God of the forest.

  But still, there were the bad times, the times when her mommy would start crying for no reason and jerk handfuls of her own hair as if she wanted to pull it clean out of her head, especially on the nights after the other Wiccans in her coven moved quietly across their backyard and went into the Sanctuary. That only happened once in a while, when the moon got all big and full and the shadow spiders crawled all over Diana’s walls. On those nights, Diana was told to stay inside the house with Spirit and not to come out, because she had not yet learned enough of the Wiccan ways to come inside and witness the sacred rituals. But those were the nights when she heard screams and cries and men groaning and yelling and she wondered what was going on out there but was afraid to ask Luna any questions for fear she would slap her in the face again.

  Then one day when Diana had already learned many of the things she needed to know and was playing ball with Spirit in her bedroom, Luna yelled up the steps at her.

  Her voice was loud and strident, and Diana knew she was in one of her scary moods.

  “Diana! You get your butt down here right now! Diana, you hear me? Right this minute! You run, you hear me!”

  Spirit started whining, probably as afraid as Diana was, and she jumped off the bed and squeezed her hands together, frightened because Mommy was yelling really loud and using that awful shrill voice that she only used when Diana was in big trouble. That’s when Luna got so angry and slapped Diana and scratched her arms and knocked her down on the ground and dragged her around. Those were the times that Diana dreaded like crazy; those were the times when Luna seemed like a different person, maybe even one of those bad witches and not a Wiccan, after all. Diana ran downstairs as fast as she could, though, and her mommy was waiting in the kitchen, her hands on her hips, the most terrible look twisting her face.

  “You are a bad, bad little girl! You are the naughtiest little girl in the world. You come with me right now. I’m tired of having to do everything around this house! What do you think? That you’re some kind of little princess like Cinderella in those stupid cartoons you like to watch? You just come along with me, young lady! You are gonna learn to work for your meals and all those nice clothes you like to priss around in. Why should I have to sew them up and do everything else around here? You’re big enough now to do your part, and you’re gonna do it! You hear me? You understand me, you slow-witted, stupid, spoiled brat?”

  Diana ran alongside her, because Luna was taking great big strides and rushing her down the back steps. Then she began to cry because Luna’s grasp on her arm hurt so much. Spirit ran along beside them, whining and yipping
, but he couldn’t help her. Nobody could help her when Luna went into one of her rages and smelled of the whiskey stuff that she liked to drink out of the big brown bottle she hid in the pantry. They just had to wait and see what Luna was going to do. But it was scary, and she was scared, and then Luna grabbed her by her ponytail and pulled her down the trail toward the bayou. “No, no, Mommy, don’t, please don’t,” she cried, but her mommy didn’t listen.

  Luna was screaming all kinds of bad words at the top of her lungs, strange words that Diana didn’t even know, and then she grabbed Diana and jerked her off the ground and swung her around hard, and then she just let her go. Diana sailed out over the bayou and hit the water on her back. She plunged under so hard that she hit the mud on the bottom. The water wasn’t deep so close to the bank, but her mommy had told her about the alligators that came around and ate the entrails of all the dead animals that her mommy threw off the dock after she skinned them.

  Terrified, Diana surfaced, strangling and splashing because she couldn’t swim, and then Spirit was right there beside her, grabbing her shirt with his teeth and pulling her back to the bank. Luna was still standing there, looking up at the sky and laughing shrilly, her shrieks echoing around in the cypress trees and scaring off the birds roosting in them. Diana crawled out of the water on her hands and knees, Spirit still tugging on her dress. She collapsed facedown in the mud and just lay there, gasping for air and crying her heart out. Spirit lay down close beside her and whined and whimpered, too.

  Then, all of a sudden, it became very quiet again. Luna stopped screaming curses and laughing, and just stared out over the bayou like she did sometimes, now all solemn and calm, as if she were in a trance, sort of like she did when she was praying to the Moon Goddess. Then just like it always happened, her mommy seemed to wake up from a dream. She looked around and when she saw Diana sprawled out in the mud, all sopping wet and crying her heart out, she ran to her and gathered her up close inside her arms.

  “Oh, sweetheart, what on earth happened to you? Did you fall into the water, you poor little thing. My goodness, Diana, don’t you cry. Mommy’s here. Luna will help you. Just like my mama helped me when I was little like you are. Look at you, you got your dress all wet and muddy. It’s all ruined now, but no worries, I’ll make you a new one that’s even prettier. Come, little one, I’ll give you a nice warm bath, and then I’ll fix your favorite supper for you. Anything you want, anything at all. How about fried squirrel and dumplin’s? You love that, now don’t you? And we’ll save all the bones for Spirit, except the ones we need for our next ritual.”

  Diana tried not to cry anymore but couldn’t make herself stop. Luna scooped her up and cuddled her close as she carried her back to the house. She murmured quiet little soothing words and told her how very much she loved her and told her again that the doctors told Luna that she suffered from something called bipolar and something else called schizophrenia and some other messed-up kinda stuff inside her head, too. She told her that she couldn’t help the bad things she did sometimes but that she didn’t mean them, that she never meant them. The little girl finally took one last shuddering breath, and then she hugged her mommy very tightly around her neck and hoped the bad part of her mommy, that bipolar part, whatever it was, wouldn’t come out anymore, just like she always hoped when her mommy went crazy on her and Spirit. Maybe it wouldn’t happen ever again, maybe Luna was okay now. Maybe her mommy would just love her and not scare her anymore. But she was afraid to hope for that. It had never worked before, had it? Maybe she should pray to the Moon Goddess to make her mommy be okay and not get so mad and throw her in the bayou or slap her in the face anymore. Maybe the moon would protect her, the way Luna always said it would.

  So the little girl waited and waited for the Moon Goddess to hurry up and heal her mommy from her fits of anger, but it just never happened. Thankfully, her mommy’s rages didn’t happen all the time. Some of the time her mommy was the nicest person in the whole world, the one who loved her very much. But Diana lived in fear and often hid in a special hut that she’d found in the woods beyond the turn of the bayou or in the Sanctuary where Luna never seemed to want to hurt her. She didn’t know what else she could do or where she could go. She didn’t know anybody, except for a few nice ladies who came down the bayou in their boats now and again and fished along their banks. Sometimes they gave Diana homemade bread and cookies wrapped in aluminum foil or shared their bologna sandwiches out of their lunch pail or left a loaf of homemade bread or an apple pie for Luna. Then they said that if she ever needed them, just to run up the bank and find them. Even so, and with her being so young, Diana knew she couldn’t do that. She already knew that her mama was a crazy person. She was plumb crazy, and that’s all there was to it. Nothing could be done about it, except to put up with the crazy times and hope that it would end someday soon.

  Diana spent a lot of time in her room with Spirit, trying to stay out of her mommy’s way. Now Mommy was saying that she didn’t want Diana to ever call her mommy again. Diana could only call her Luna, and, in turn, Luna only called the little girl Diana. It was all very strange and hard to understand. Diana’s mind was growing more and more muddled with questions and confused with each passing day. Sometimes she couldn’t think straight at all and just lay in her bed and stared up at the ceiling so she wouldn’t do anything else wrong and send her Luna into her crazy time.

  As time went by, Diana became more and more afraid of her mommy, because Luna now had some kind of needle that she put in her arm that made her get all nervous and stuff. That’s when she paced the floor, back and forth, back and forth, especially when the man who came up on the back porch with all those little plastic bags of medicine was late. It was all very strange and creepy, and Diana always lived in fear and prayed every single day for her mommy to be nice all the time.

  Chapter Five

  Andrea Quinn lived on the top floor, so Claire and Novak headed for the elevator bank, which happened to be located near the student mailboxes. Claire turned out to be right about Novak’s “off the charts scary” factor. Three sleepy female students were also waiting by the elevators for the up arrow to flash on, their loaded backpacks weighing them down. All three took one gander at Novak’s size and bulk and gruff and backed off to wait for the next one.

  Claire and Novak stepped inside and the doors slid softly together. “You always scare off everybody like that, Novak?”

  “Yeah. That’s the way I like it.”

  “I get that.”

  Claire pressed the button with a number 5 on it. As they rode up, swiftly and surely, Novak suddenly became highly inquisitive. “When’re you gonna tell me why we’re really looking for this kid? And why you don’t just contact your cop buddies at the police department and put out a BOLO or a missing person? Better yet, why haven’t you already done that?”

  Overcome by the sheer and unexpected volume of his verbiage, Claire stepped out into the hallway when the bell dinged their arrival at the fifth floor. “Not a good idea right now.”

  “Look, I don’t like bein’ kept in the dark. Not good for my health.”

  “You won’t be. Truth is, I don’t know a whole helluva lot more than you do. Just that her parents are worried about her. Want us to find out if she’s all right. Want to keep the authorities out of it for now.”

  “Gotta have reasons for something like that.”

  Claire hesitated, but he was right on and she knew it. “All right, fine—her father is a deported arms dealer and criminal. He doesn’t want to contact the police or get her picture plastered all over the newspapers, for fear of endangering her even more.”

  “Not Jonas Quinn?”

  “Yep. Jonas Quinn. Know him?”

  “I know who he is.”

  “You still on board?”

  “I’m okay. Now that I know the score.”

  Novak failed to comment further on the subject, as he silently trailed her down the hall. They found Andrea’s room at the far en
d of an extremely silent floor, which was a phenomenon that had not come to pass all that often in Claire’s short college experience, just up the road at LSU. “All the Tulane dorms this quiet, Novak?”

  “This is a dorm that caters to more serious kids.”

  “I didn’t know there were any serious college kids.”

  “You got that right. Studious kids are supposed to live here. Wall’s not known as a party dorm. That would be Monroe and Sharp. Fun places. Butler is the honors dorm.”

  “That where you lived?”

  “I lived off campus. Commuted.”

  Claire didn’t think studious college kids were probably all that common, either, but she tapped a knuckle on the door and waited impatiently. No answer, not then and not the second time, either. So she swiped the key and opened the door. They stepped inside quickly and found a dorm room that looked as if nobody had touched it for two years, much less lived in it. The walls were yellow, the furniture the same as downstairs, light veneer with some metal parts. There was a door that probably led to a bathroom, two beds, two desks, two built-in wardrobes, and a Tulane pennant on the wall between a picture of a laughing red devil with horns and a pentagram poster stamped on slick black paper with what was supposed to be blood spatter all over it. Nice. Claire felt right at home.

  Across the room, the tall window stood open, the screen intact, but the brown blinds were drawn all the way up to the top. The room was ice cold. Most dorm windows weren’t designed as open invitations for high and/or drunk collegians to take air walks, but maybe these serious and studious kids liked to breathe fresh air to stimulate and fire up the synapses in their gray matter.

  Novak said, “Well, either she’s a neat freak who likes to be freezing cold, or she’s long gone.”

  “Yeah. Well, let’s search the room and see what we find.”

  Watching Novak surreptitiously, Claire saw him open a drawer in the nearest desk and rifle through its contents, all without leaving fingerprints. Looked like he knew what he was doing. She walked to the twin wardrobes and slid open the two doors of the one on the right. Inside were about two hundred too many clothes stuffed on hangers and about twenty shoe boxes stacked on a top shelf with little photos of the contents stuck on the end with Scotch tape. “Well, somebody is very organized and loves her footwear. That’s plain to see.”