Secrets of Skin and Stone

by Wendy Laine

“You’ve been busy. I bought the place from the Laramies. When I moved out, they razed it.” He stabbed a finger in the machine shop’s direction. “It shouldn’t be there. Danny shouldn’t be…” His words hung between us. “All of y’all shouldn’t be…but it’s full circle, isn’t it? And Hidden Creek…the pull…the pull is just so damn strong.” He shook his head.

  “Why is that?” I’d started feeling it, started noticing the pull of it, like he said. It’s almost as if I was stronger here.

  The silence stretched and it had teeth. If he was going for creepy old geezer that you crossed the street to avoid—he’d nailed it. I was good and spooked.

  I cleared my throat. “So, Tawna Beaumont? Is she still around?” Maybe she might have more information on Silas Beaumont.

  Critch snorted and turned to stare out the window again. “Gutless.” I wasn’t sure who he meant by that. “Everybody’s changed names. As if the name they were born with had something tainted stitched to it. It’s funny that people in Hidden Creek have such a long memory except for things they’d rather not know about. Didn’t work then, though…didn’t work then. Won’t work now.” A long, wheezed breath hissed out of him. “And it isn’t right.”

  “What isn’t?”

  “Getting her involved. Or him. But especially her. Shouldn’t have gotten her involved.” He was really getting worked up. His breath was coming faster and faster. Was he still talking about Tawna? “She shouldn’t have been involved!” He slammed a hand against the window frame with each word.

  I blinked. Was any of this supposed to make sense? “Who? Who shouldn’t have been involved?”

  Minutes went by with only his heavy breathing as a response.

  Finally, I said, “I went to the mill a couple nights back. You’re right that something is happening here. You were right to ask me to come.” Maybe that’d appease him.

  He snorted. Maybe not. “Was I right? They didn’t kill you so it’s difficult to say either way.”

  The spoon paused halfway to my mouth. “Was that the plan? That they’d kill me?” Hell, how involved was my uncle in all this? He couldn’t possibly be summoning all these fiends to kill me. No. No way. He was old. Possibly senile.

  I ate the cereal on the spoon. No use letting it get soggy.

  “Not sure what the plan was or if there was one. Cerberus seems like it’d go for brute strength.”

  “Cerberus? Are you talking about the three-headed dog that guards hell?” I wasn’t especially fond of Hidden Creek at this point, but calling it a gateway to hell seemed a bit extreme.

  He barked what sounded like a laugh. “Maybe I am, and there’s no controlling it or what it might unleash. One head is better than three.” He tapped his head. “One head.”

  More like no head. “Were you talking about Piper earlier—when you said ‘her’? Do you know who killed her dog?”

  He squinted at me. “Tawna had hair the same color as her—as bright and sunny as a spring day. Ugly way to go…bedeviled mad.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “How could it be? Tawna’s gone.” He went to the door, shaking his head. With his hand paused on the doorknob, he muttered, “Have a little respect. You’re walking on graves.” Then, he was gone.

  What the hell was that? What did any of that mean? For all I knew, he might’ve been saying that Piper was Tawna’s grandchild or great grandchild through him.

  She couldn’t be, though.

  She wasn’t.

  While eating my cereal, I watched Critch through the picture window as he shuffled across the yard to the Porters’. My aunt and uncle had built a room to the side for him. Dad said Critch had paid for it. Maybe there was a retirement program for old Watchers. I finished up and washed my bowl while it all swirled around in my head. Critch could bedevil better than fiends.

  Since there was no way in hell I’d fall asleep after that little visit, it was as good a time as any to go check out that grave.

  Stepping outside, I inhaled deeply. The time I’d spent in cities did make me appreciate some of the scents of nature here, like the smell of freshly turned earth. Shifting into my gargoyle form, I flexed the muscles in my back, sweeping the air with my wings. My face stretched, pulling at the skin on my cheeks. I flew slowly, gathering darkness to mask me as I approached.

  The cruiser wasn’t at the cemetery anymore.

  I landed and wandered over to the grave. There was something eerie about the gaping hole. The plot was beside a clump of bushes in one of the older sections of the cemetery. All the other graves around it were nearly a century old. The hole itself was shallower than I’d have expected. That, and the fact the bushes obscured its location likely helped the grave robber get what they needed without being discovered.

  The stone above the open grave was rounded other than the gargoyle perched on the corner. It called to me, drew me. It was as if Hidden Creek was some sort of link between birth and death, old and new, Watchers and fiends. I felt a connection to the grave, same as I did to this place. “Silas Edward Beaumont. RIP Born March 18, 1896, Died May 13, 1933. Beloved Husband and Father.” And the former owner of my house.

  So much was rattling around in my brain. Too much. There were too many players and too much information. I needed a sounding board. Especially since I was now staring down into a damn grave.

  Screw this. It’s not like I was asking for help. It was brainstorming.

  I called Dad.

  He answered immediately.

  “I’m looking at a Watcher’s grave. Silas Beaumont‘s grave, to be exact. He came from a line of Watchers that once lived here in Hidden Creek. But I think they died out, or their birthright did.” I circled the grave. “I’m staring at it because someone dug it up.”

  Dad swore. “And you’re sure it’s a Watcher’s grave?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I think so.”

  “Okay, if it’s a Watcher’s grave, it would be off to the side of the cemetery—nearly outside of it.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s the farthest to this side. Why is that?”

  “It’s old?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They didn’t let us be buried on hallowed ground back then, and it was more common for local religious leaders to be aware of a Watcher’s presence in a town.” He snorted. “We could clean their town of fiends but not be buried beside them. We were cursed and linked to fiends. They painted us with the same brush. Is our inscription on the bottom?”

  I crouched in front of the headstone while trying not to get too close to the hole. I should have checked this earlier, but it felt like I was staring down my own mortality by doing so. Pushing the grass away from the base, I read, “Ever Watchful.”

  He swore a full-on blue streak. He was so thorough that if Piper had been around she would’ve insisted he wash his mouth out.

  “Why would somebody steal from a Watcher’s grave? Was there something buried with him?” I asked.

  “Possibly. It’s not tradition if that’s what you’re asking. We’re not exactly pharaohs or kings. No fancy scepters or jeweled gargoyles.”

  “I get it. I get it.”

  “What’s left in the coffin now?”

  I looked down into the shadowed recesses of the casket. They’d broken clear through the pine box he’d been buried in. “I don’t know.” I pulled a flashlight from one of the pockets in my cargo pants and shone it down. There was dirt inside the casket but, beyond that, the shadows and the remainder of the casket obscured its contents. I couldn’t even see any bones.

  “Well, get down in there and find out.”

  “Oh, hell no.” I’d never said that to my dad before, but if ever a time warranted it, this was that time.

  He sighed—loudly. “Gris, if it just happened, the police are probably trying to find his living relatives to fully exhume that coffin. We don’t have time for you to be prissy.”

  “Prissy? You want me to climb down into the grave and root around through his corpse, and you’re calling
that prissy?”

  “Sounds like it fits. You wanna be a full Watcher and hang with the big dogs—you gotta do nasty things that you hope you can forget. It’s why we get paid the big bucks. Stay in Watcher form if it helps.”

  “Fine. Hold on.” After switching my phone to speaker, I tossed it to the side and bit the flashlight between my teeth.

  Taking his advice, I shifted into Watcher form and even flew into the hole. I tried setting down gently, but my weight on the partially broken lid of the coffin collapsed it entirely. I let out my own slew of curses. I didn’t need the flashlight to see the talons on my feet had torn through the bottom of the coffin. Moist dirt squished between my toes, even the armor of my skin couldn’t mask that sensation. Hopefully it was dirt. It had to be. Either way, I’d caught my balance, but I was leaving some strange traces behind for whoever did exhume this grave. Great. Freaking fantastic.

  “Is everything okay?” Dad asked. I didn’t bother answering his amused question. Real funny. He wasn’t ankle-deep in either dirt or dead guy.

  I pulled the flickering flashlight from between my beak-like lips and discovered my teeth had broken through portions of the metal Maglite so the batteries were visible. This couldn’t get any better. It just couldn’t.

  I crouched down and looked at the wreckage around my feet which were buried deep in the dirt beneath the coffin. I exhaled a puff of breath. Just dirt.

  “Casket looks empty,” I called out. “Either the police or the grave robber took everything.” That was a relief. It would have been real nasty to find my foot through another Watcher’s rib cage.

  “Hell.” Dad groaned.

  “Will whoever took them be able to tell they have the bones of a Watcher?” I hadn’t ever gone to regular doctors, not since the birthright had chosen me—my wings made that impossible. They looked like ribs if you didn’t examine an x-ray too long, but not enough to fool a doctor.

  “Much of it might have decayed. It’s an old grave, right?”

  “Yep. About eighty years old.” Around the same age as Uncle Critch.

  “It’s hard to say how much would be left, but we need to be worried about what our robber is doing with Watcher bones if he knows he has them.”

  “What might they be doing?”

  “I don’t know. What else is going on? I thought I’d hear from you before this.”

  “I’ve been busy. There’s more here than I expected.”

  “More fiends?”

  I didn’t want to tell him. This was my job, and I was feeling downright possesive of the town and some of its residents. On the other hand, if anything happened to Piper because I was too stubborn to see reason, I’d never forgive myself. “More everything. This town is not at all normal. It’s bedeviled beyond anything I’ve seen. I took on nine fiends in an abandoned mill over the weekend. Somebody is planting curse bags, messing in the dark arts. Then, I’m checking out this neighbor girl, Piper, and…”

  “You’re checking out a girl?” The amusement was back in his voice.

  “No, I’m checking things out for her. For her.”

  “Not what you said.”

  “Somebody killed her dog.”

  That sobered him up real fast. “Somebody? Somebody bedeviled?”

  “I can’t tell. I can’t figure out who did it. Piper is trying to help, but I’m worried she’s in danger because somebody is planting curse sacks in her room, too. I keep thinking I’ve gotten them all, but there’s still fiends there.”

  “Same as whatever you found at the mill?”

  “Different. But I don’t know if I’m dealing with different people or they’re evolving. The fiends at the mill were mean as hell.” I gestured at the grave, even though he couldn’t see me. “Then, I’ve got a grave dug up and, oh, Crazy Critch got into the house I’m staying in. I’m not sure how he got in. I know I locked the doors.”

  “Oh yeah? What did he have to say for himself? Is he proud that he was right about the number of fiends?”

  “I don’t know. He mentioned the Beaumonts who lived in the house and at least Silas died there.”

  “In your house?”

  “From the newspaper report, I know Silas did. Critch told me I was walking on graves. I don’t know what happened to the rest of them, aside from another one who’s buried somewhere around here—who also died young. You don’t think Critch meant other Beaumonts were buried underneath the house, though, right?”

  “Maybe it was meant to be metaphorical.”

  “Because Critch has been known to get all poetic at times.” I shook my head. That bit about Cerberus was weird. “You’re not allowed to do that, are you? Bury people on your property? That’s against code or a health violation or illegal, right?”

  Dad’s cough sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Listen to my urbane, sophisticated son getting his panties all bunched up over staying in a house that might have bones buried in the yard.”

  “The yard’s fine.” It wasn’t. Not really. “I just don’t want to open a closet and have the Beaumonts spill out.” There’d been renters, but what if they hadn’t poked around much? What if there were bones in the walls? Or floors?

  “Is there a cellar? I’d bury annoying relatives in the cellar if it was me, rather than spring for a funeral. You’re lucky you’re the favored son; we might get you a pine box.”

  “Whatever, Dad. Remember, I’m your only child and responsible for picking out your retirement home.”

  “Noted.” Sometimes I had to rein him in.

  I cleared my throat. “Dad, did Aunt Jess want the birthright?”

  There was a long pause before he said, “Yes. She talked about it all the time when we were kids. She told her husband that it’d go to them because it usually doesn’t pass directly like it did with us.” Another pause. “Why? Has she said something to you about it?”

  “No.” I didn’t want to cause strain between him and his sister. Besides, as much as Aunt Jess might want the birthright, it was too late and my aunt was a very pragmatic woman.

  “Do you need me to come there?”

  “No! I’m doing fine. I got this.” I just needed to talk this out. That was all. Physically, I could handle this.

  “Gris, they’ve dug up a Watcher’s bones, killed a dog, and it sounds like they’re flinging curse bags around like they’re at a Mardi Gras parade. I can try to rush things along here.”

  “How’s your job going?”

  “I took more hits than the agents protecting this diplomat. I’m glad he‘s going back to his own country soon. He’s dragging in a ton of fiends. It reminds me of New York after 9/11. Diplomats from war-torn countries are like bait.”

  “It sounds like you couldn’t come here anyway.”

  “If you need me, I will be there.”

  “I don’t. It’s fine. I got this.” I just had to keep saying that. “Do you think there’s a chance Uncle Critch might be doing some of this to get his powers back or to get rid of me for taking them?” I couldn’t picture him taking on the more physical aspects of this—the graverobbing or killing Jester—if that was related.

  “I don’t think he’d be ambitious enough nor does he have the knowledge.”

  “You make it sounds like it’s possible.”

  “It’s been attempted, but I don’t know if it’s ever been successful. With great power comes greater temptation. Watchers have often tried to manipulate or control who gets the birthright or to give it to those who don’t have it. It’s also possible this grave robber could be trying to revive the Beaumont bloodline using the bones, but I suspect you’d need the blood if not the life of a living Watcher for that.”

  “You suspect?”

  “Well, most of that knowledge has died off because Watchers who go that route have a high mortality rate. They also might be trying to pry a gateway open and flood the town with fiends.”

  “There are a lot of fiends here.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “Dad, I’
m fine. I can handle the fiends, and if it’s Critch coming after me, I like my odds against an eighty-year-old who breathes louder than Darth Vader.”

  “I’d bet on you.”

  “It might just be some psychopath who likes playing with bones,” I suggested. “If that’s the case, would they know what they have—what we are?”

  Dad sighed. “Maybe. Most of what looks decidedly different about our bodies would’ve decayed away, but it’ll look…fishy. An anthropologist might call it a strange medical anomaly. So, at best, if knowledge of the bones surfaced, you’re exposed—our secret is exposed. At worst, someone with the right knowledge might try to revive a dead bloodline by killing a live Watcher.”

  Until I knew who’d done this, my secret was vulnerable to exposure with all of Hidden Creek. Anybody could have those bones. They could know about me, know what I was. My so-called job would make it obvious.

  “Heaven help us.” I surged out of the grave with a swoop of my wings and dropped down beside my phone.

  “Heaven won‘t even let us be buried in the same cemetery. For hell‘s sake, I hope our grave robber keeps those bones to himself.”

  …

  I’d stopped by Piper’s, intending just to check on her, and there were more fiends than ever. I must’ve missed some curse pouches—or someone had been in her room and put more in.

  I couldn’t let fiends prey on her for another night. Piper didn’t need any bedeviling from outside sources.

  I gathered the night around me. I’d need to transform completely, rather than just making use of my powers or shifting without my wings emerging. This number of fiends would require my full strength. My wings shifted and shoved their way out as my bones creaked and warped. My talons broke through; their bone pallor absorbed the blackness of the night instantly.

  The wispy spectral forms of the fiends slithered around her house like writhing snakes. Hopefully, none of the curse sacks were buried. It wasn’t only on account of me being a city boy that I didn’t relish digging. It might take a while to find any buried sacks—like the worst sort of treasure hunt ever devised.

  Holding the darkness around me, I inched her window open. I’d nearly suggested she stick a pipe in the window well to secure it when I’d been here before, but keeping others out would keep me out, too. Her curtains brushed my face as I slid in.