by Wendy Laine
“Uhh, are you talking about yourself, Piper?”
I rolled my eyes and sniffed back the tears that had almost escaped. “No. Mama did when she saw it. I don’t blame her. He was all laid out, and then the blood…”
“So, it definitely wasn’t an animal that did this.”
“No. It was…neat. Animals don‘t kill that way. Only human beings kill cleanly. Also, Jester would have made a racket if another animal came after him, like you said. One moment, he was barking—then he wasn’t. There’s something dark and filthy about that.” I lifted my hand to my necklace and ran the locket at my throat back and forth, back and forth. It was my mama’s and empty, but there was something soothing about the weight of it around my neck. “Mama has been trying to convince everybody it was an animal. She thinks if she tells my brother enough times, it’ll be true. But it wasn’t an animal.” My voice wobbled.
“There are animals around here that’ll attack livestock and such.”
“The edges of where he’d been torn into…” I swallowed. “It had to have been done with a knife. A sharp knife. I mean, I only saw him for a few seconds, but I remember.” I’d always remember. “He’d been barking around midnight. I’d heard him. I yelled at him. I can’t take that back. Ever. When he stopped, I was happy.” My voice cracked on the last word. I paid for being happy more than I ever paid for being sad.
His hand touched my shoulder, firmly and briefly. “I covered it back up. The police must’ve had something to say about…the way he was.”
“My parents didn’t call them.”
“Why? Because they really believe it was an animal?”
My thirteen-year-old brother, Dale, would think it was a cool story, but I wasn’t sure if he’d hold to Mama’s version of events. He was in this morbid phase where dead things were cool and all of his online games included shooting zombies. By school tomorrow, everybody would’ve heard something from him and come to their own conclusions. Small towns sometimes sucked eggs in that way. Everybody knew everybody’s business. “They want to believe that. Sometimes, that’s the best way to deal with unpleasantness. You move on.”
I hadn’t planned on telling anybody that. It was his charm. No, it was something about the way he looked at me that had me wanting to tell him all my secrets. Plus, he always looked at my face, and not my legs or my chest. It was different—like he did actually want to be my friend.
“Sometimes, it is easier to move on,” he agreed.
“I never move on from anything,” I whispered, staring at his shoulder. He was over a foot taller than me, so his shoulder was closer to my eye level.
“If you’re going to find out who did this, I’m going to help you. Whoever did it might be trying to send you a message or planning to do worse.” A heavy sigh made his black T-shirt rise and fall. “I’m hungry. Let‘s go grab some lunch. I brought an extra helmet.”
I blinked up at him. We were going out to lunch?
All right. Yeah, I could do that.
His body went still, and he looked in the distance. “I hear sirens. Hurry, and we’ll go see what they’re up to.”
I didn’t hear a thing, but I nodded. “Fine then, I’ll go tell Mama.”
Chapter Five
Gris
With Piper pressed up against my back, every rise and shallow of her body brushed mine as the bike bumped along the dirt roads around Hidden Creek. She had her fist bunched up in the fabric of my shirt. Was she scared? Her sudden burst of laughter ratchetted up my body’s temperature and then she yelled, “Go faster, Gris!”
I went faster. Her excitement was nearly tangible. Her fidgety shifting was for a whole different reason. A good reason.
The sunlit fields full of blooming wildflowers seemed to match Piper’s new mood. She was carefree—something I hadn’t seen in her yet, and I liked it. That I’d thought of this and dragged my bike over made me like it even more. It was feeling more like a date and less like an attempt to interrogate her.
Piper laughed again, tightening her legs on either side of me.
Even though it was still cool and not even noon, I started to sweat under my helmet. The humidity and heat of summer would be unbearable, but I planned to be long gone before this spring season had passed. I shouldn’t get too attached to the girl with me.
I was up to about 95 percent certain she wasn’t roping in the fiends—purposefully. The curse pouches I’d removed from her room last night had different ingredients than the one I’d found at the mill—nothing uncommon or unusual. But they still drew in fiends. I’d killed three outside her room and shoved two more out her window.
Piper somehow managed to scoot even closer. Her legs were right up against my thighs, and I could see her knees out of the bottom of my helmet.
I went faster.
I slowed down at the end of the short road and stared down Old Hill Road at the flashing lights in front of a cemetery.
“What do you reckon happened?” Piper pulled off her helmet and stared hard down the road. “That’s the cemetery. Why would the sheriff be at the cemetery?”
I shrugged. I almost didn’t want to know.
“Should we go ask?”
I smiled. “How would that go? ‘Yeah, sheriff, I’m new to town, but I see you’re investigating a crime, and I’d like to know more about it.’”
She slapped my shoulder. “Maybe we don’t have to ask then. C’mon, I know a back way in.” After she put her helmet back on, Piper directed me down a few narrow roads then motioned to leave the bike. We crept along another winding path and emerged behind a tall stone mausoleum on the edge of the cemetery.
“That’s in the old part of the cemetery,” Piper said. “Real old. Nobody there is fresher than the fifties.”
I peeked around the mausoleum and asked, “Do you come here often?”
“This is where our history is. The people who are alive today have nothing on those buried here. They have stories the years are eating away. Sometimes I come here to listen to the dead speak in dates. Agnes Phillips, beloved wife, mother, knitter.” She pointed at a nearby grave. “Horace Turner. Died December 7th, 1941. Pearl Harbor. I confirmed it in the library ‘cause I wanted to be sure.”
I tried not to stare at her. Piper had to be one of the most fascinating people I’d ever met.
“Anyway, I read the dates and guessed at how they lived and died.”
“Do you know whose grave they’ve cordoned off?”
“No, but give me your phone.” She stared at the image of a gargoyle before handing it back. “Unlock it.”
Right. Something about Piper scattered my wits. After unlocking it, I swiped away the gargoyle screen and handed her my phone again.
Piper held it up and used the zoom feature on the camera. Squinting, she said, “Oh, I do know that one. Silas Beaumont. I was totally wrong about him. It was a bad year for the Great Depression, but that was right before prohibition was repealed, so I thought, what is a desperate man in Hidden Creek going to do to earn a living?”
“Leave Hidden Creek,” I suggested.
“That’s my plan, but I figured Silas probably died from a bad batch of moonshine.” She wrinkled up her nose. “It was an animal attack. There was an article about it in the local paper. I looked it up at the library.” Chewing on her lower lip, she shifted the phone up and snapped a picture. “But here’s the really cool thing. You’re not the only one who likes gargoyles.”
I snatched the phone from her hand and stared at the photo. It was a little blurry, but there was unmistakably a sculpture of a gargoyle perched on top of the grave. Oh, that wasn’t good. I’d been to enough of my family’s graves to recognize signs of a Watcher’s burial plot.
“What is it?” Piper asked.
“Uhh, nothing. Just surprised to see gargoyles in Hidden Creek.” Danny had said a Watcher died here. And if the birthright really did linger and haunt the way Uncle Critch claimed, then it wasn’t a stretch to assume this grave was connected with the
rabid fiend population.
There are things here in Hidden Creek that won’t go quietly.
“Why would somebody dig up such an old grave?” Piper stood on her tiptoes.
No good reason. Still, to distract her, I asked, “Do you want me to put you on my shoulders?”
Piper blushed bright pink and sent me a repressive frown.
I needed to get back here, but not with all the police around—and certainly not with Piper. It’d probably be clear after dark. “I’m starving. Let’s get out of here.”
Her green eyes narrowed. “Don‘t you have any natural curiosity?”
Oh, I was real curious. “You’re half my size, so you can’t possibly understand how much energy I need just to stay standing.”
Laughing, she shook her head. “Fine. But something is going on in Hidden Creek, and I’m going to find out what it is.”
I couldn’t disagree with that. In fact, as we rode toward town, I had to face the fact that I’d practically encouraged it. I shouldn’t let her get involved. I was used to hunting monsters; she wasn’t. Jester’s death could be part of an escalation. Maybe somebody just hated the Devons—and the tiny blonde behind me in particular. Hard to believe, but plausible.
“I don’t suppose that diner on First is any good.”
Piper slapped my helmet this time. “‘Course it’s good. Good enough for civilized people.”
Alrighty then, Dick’s Diner it was. Every small town had a diner like it. Joe’s. Moe‘s. Fred’s. Half the time, they made grease run through your veins. The other half, well, they weren’t any good.
“So, I take it you’ve eaten here before?” I asked as we walked in. I ineffectively tried to rub the helmet look out of my hair.
Piper ignored the question, just like she’d ignored all the previous ones.
Dick‘s Diner had two dozen red vinyl booths and Formica tables. There was a counter around the grill where a few older folks were eating, and a group of jocks in the corner booth scowled at me. The menu had weird items like “Ethyl’s special chicken covered in Judy’s sausage gravy”—a private joke against outsiders. I’d eaten at a Joe’s Diner in a town outside of Tampa after a job and “Tom’s special chicken” had turned out to be alligator.
“I’ve never gone that fast,” Piper said, pulling strands of her hair from her face. The wind from our ride made her skin flush pink and her eyes sparkle. She looked more like a pixie than ever. A patch of light freckles dusted her thin nose. She had freckles on her knees, too, a thought that made me uncomfortably warm. “That was amazing. Sorta like flying.”
Not quite, but close, and as close as most people would ever get.
I forced myself to look at her face, and not just at her mouth. I didn’t want to be too obvious. Making eye contact was good, so I stared at her green eyes, trying to figure out their exact color. Not grass green, more of a light mossy color. Maybe the color of mold on bread? Wow. I’d need to think of something better than that.
At least I wasn’t focused on the same parts of her as the idiots behind me, placing bets on whether or not I’d get “into” her. They were quiet enough that she wouldn’t be able to hear, but I wanted to punch them. The cook behind the grill had glanced their way a few times. Maybe somebody else would tell them to shut their big mouths.
Our waitress came up and watched Piper arrange her silverware in front of her.
Piper refolded her napkin into a triangle after sliding the silverware out. Everything was exact and everything had a place. Every motion she made was controlled and just-so.
She met my eyes and smiled tightly—as if waiting for me to comment.
I didn’t.
I turned into a gargoyle. She only liked things a certain way. There’d be no judgement from my side of the table.
“The usual, Piper?” the waitress asked.
Piper nodded. She smiled, a real genuine smile. Her upper lip had a freckle on it, near the corner. I’d been staring at it earlier, fantasizing about how her lips might taste. All the shadows were gone from her green eyes when she smiled, and that freckle hovered in the corner of her mouth, tempting me.
“What’ll you have?” the waitress asked me.
“Whatever she’s having.” I handed back the menu. I could eat everything and anything.
Piper‘s green eyes met mine, and a challenging look replaced her amused one. Yeah, I needed a better way to describe her eyes than bread mold—they were sharp and intelligent.
“A Piper‘s Special? You sure about that?” the waitress asked, her pen poised.
Piper‘s eyes dared me. Her special must be more than a straight burger and fries.
“Yes, ma’am. Whatever she’s having.” I never backed down from a challenge, and I was practicing a new kind of charm on Piper.
“Fine then. Two Piper Specials.” The waitress drew out the words, and the implication was “it’s your funeral.” She walked away, shaking her head.
“I feel like I’m not in on a joke,” I said.
Piper‘s pointed chin firmed as her jaw tightened. I’d got this same reaction earlier when I’d mentioned my cousin’s name. “Yeah, I get that feeling a lot.” She glanced behind me at the pack of boys.
I turned. The five boys made a big production of not looking at her, but whispering just the same.
“Why did you have an extra helmet?” she asked.
“Borrowed it from the Porters. They fix bikes in their shop and had one for test rides.”
“So, you came over to take me on a ride?”
“I was hoping it’d help get your mind off things.”
Her nose wrinkled up as she tilted her head. Maybe she wasn’t used to the attention. She’d better get used to it. I planned on giving her a lot of attention—for as long as I was here.
“Though I hadn’t intended on the extremely cheery side-trip to the cemetery.”
Her gaze shifted to stare unfocused over my shoulder. “Just another mystery for this year.”
Another mystery—or a clue to the murder of her dog?
Remembering all the blood beside the shed was enough to freeze my veins. It was cold. Cruel. There’d been enough there to paint the shed. And it wasn’t fiends. When they harmed or killed outside of a swarm, it was to torment the mind of their intended victim. This had happened too far away from Piper. Fiends were more immediate than that. This had been calculated and must’ve taken some time. Then, there had been tiny drops of blood beneath her window. Somebody’d killed her dog and then gone to her window and looked in. Nothing in the nature of fiends fit this.
Hidden Creek was spitting out uglier things than I usually handled. For once, I wished it was fiends; I could predict them.
Piper‘s fingers darted out to adjust my knife a hair. Then, her eyes flew up to meet mine, partly nervous, but also daring me to say something. I tried to keep my expression blank. There was a fierce aspect to her, even when she was vulnerable. Like how last night she kept searching for the flashlight while giving me a tongue-lashing. She’d kept her composure while conversing with a monster.
Piper rearranged the salt and pepper shakers, ketchup, and maple syrup. She’d moved on to aligning the local advertisement for a community play with the napkin dispenser when I said, “I once had this ferret named Fred, smartest critter I‘d ever met. He got out of every cage he was put in. I’d had him two years when he decided to take a stroll outside. He fell into this bucket right below my window. It’d been collecting rainwater. The edges were too slick for him to climb, and he drowned.”
For all her forced detachment, Piper looked tragically upset on behalf of Fred. “That’s awful.”
“It was like six years ago, but I remember hating myself because my mom had asked me to dump the bucket earlier that day. So, it took me some time to work through that before I could even begin to hate him for dying on me.”
“Hate him?”
“They’re supposed to live forever.” I sat back, giving her room to think it over.
>
Boys around here’d certainly done a number on her willingness to trust another soul. Luckily, I was patient. Well, sorta patient anyway. I wasn’t gonna be in Hidden Creek forever. But I wasn’t looking for a quick score. Not that I was looking for a relationship, either; that wasn’t an option for me. I clenched my jaw. Damn, maybe I was being as bad as the locals.
I smiled. “If we’re both looking into this, seems convenient if we work on it together then, doesn’t it?” After seeing that her dog’s murderer had stopped by her window, no way was I leaving her to investigate this alone. And I was going to be dropping by to check her place in my rounds of Hidden Creek. The only one stopping by her window was going to be me.
The waitress set plates in front of us and then waited. Clearly, a response was expected to whatever I’d ordered. It was a burger. A burger that smelled funny. Plus, my fries were on an entirely separate plate with something white. Mayo? Tartar? Ranch dressing?
I lifted the top bun of the burger. Huh.
Piper grinned before she took a bite of her burger.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked the waitress, pointing at what sat atop my burger.
“I reckon it might be. Crunchy peanut butter with pieces of bacon mixed in on the top bun only. Sesame seed bun toasted just past tan. Two pieces of lettuce underneath the burger. Fries on a separate plate with tartar sauce.”
“Same as me,” Piper said. She was enjoying the moment.
The waitress waved a hand at the shake she’d put directly below a long spoon. It looked like an exclamation point. Piper’s matched in position exactly. “That there’s a banana caramel shake with chocolate chips on top.” She snorted a laugh before deadpanning, “Enjoy.”
I’d never eaten anything so strange. Crunchy peanut butter? Who put that on a burger? The rest wasn’t quite as unusual, even if it was more specific than I’d ever ordered it. I generally ate what was on the menu or what was put in front of me. It was the only way I’d ever even skirt the edges of a full stomach.