by Hopkin, Ben
On to the fifth circle. Flesh raining from the sky, skinned corpses, etc., etc.
“Yep. Den of losers. Would rather not remember that one, thank you very not.”
Darc tapped on the sixth one. Okay, Trey hadn’t even been sure he had them in the right order. Where were the…?
“Oh, there’s the effing snakes. Way down at the bottom. You know, you’d think they’d make those suckers a little bigger. More prominent.”
Darc scooped up the remaining three photos and finally spoke. “That’s the difficulty with these next works. Each has multiple levels that our killer may or may not reproduce.”
See, this was exactly why Trey was here. Nothing like getting a heads-up from a certified smarty-pants. “Yeah, well, hit me with them all. No surprises, remember?”
As Darc placed the seventh photo up on the whiteboard, the window to the apartment opened up and Maggie stuck her head out.
“It’s going to start raining.”
Whoa. That was uncharacteristically nice of her. “So, you’re letting us in?”
“Keep dreaming,” she said, just before she closed the window.
Trey turned to Darc and smirked. “I can see why you married her.”
He glanced at the photo his partner had posted. It was a riot of violence and brutality. The only spot that looked even remotely peaceful was a graveyard off in the corner. Well, except for the flames.
It said something about this bloody case that an exploding graveyard was looking pretty good right about now.
* * *
Officer Earnest Daniels was tired. He was tired of complaints. He was tired of teenagers. He was tired, period. It was three o’clock in the morning, for hell’s sake. Shouldn’t everyone be asleep?
“Stupid kids. Can’t they just vandalize their own stuff?”
His partner, Nalik, snorted in agreement. “Yeah, or at least tag shit in another precinct.”
And it didn’t help anything that they had been called out to a cemetery. The biggest one in Seattle. Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park was creepy enough in the daytime. Early in the morning, with nothing but the moon occasionally peeking through the clouds and the light from their flashlights? Might as well be a set for a horror flick.
Daniels hated horror flicks.
And this one was tailor-made for that kinda shit. Trees everywhere. Yeah, yeah, Emerald City and all that, but there were times where trees were not a good thing. This was one of them. Way too many shadows. Way too many blind corners. Way too many obstacles if you had to run screaming away from a guy in a hockey mask.
And it was huge. The thing stretched over more than a hundred acres and was one of the oldest in Seattle. “Old” to most people meant “charming” or “full of character,” but in this case, it just added to the freak-out factor.
Jesus H. Christ, what was wrong with him? After the massacre on the south side of town, though, everyone was jumpy. Getting the heebie-jeebies from shadows.
They passed by a huge mausoleum that the plaque proclaimed to be the Judge Thomas Burke Monument. Whatever. Daniels was just waiting for a zombie to come shambling out of it.
As they moved closer to the gravesites for the general public, Nalik’s flashlight landed on what looked like fresh dirt. This didn’t look like the orderly digging of a new grave. This was something else entirely.
Daniels added the light of his flashlight to that of his partner, turning the light on the stone that marked the grave. The tombstone was old. The date proclaimed it to have been placed back in 1892. They were in one of the older parts of the park. But the gravesite had obviously been disturbed, and just recently.
“What the…?” Daniels muttered, a chill running down his spine.
“Grave robbers?” Nalik guessed. “Really? Seriously, how low do you have to sink before digging up a dead guy’s gold tooth sounds like the most viable option to get your life back on track?” He moved over closer to the side of the grave, prodding the newly turned earth with his toe.
“Hell if I—” Daniels began, right before the night exploded all around him. The casket underneath the ground where his partner stood shot straight into the air, dirt and flame spewing up from the gaping hole in the ground where seconds before there had been only a residence for the dearly departed.
“Nalik!” the officer screamed, seeing his partner flung straight up into the air, only to collapse right at Daniels’s feet a couple of moments later. Nalik’s singed hand grabbed hold of Daniels’s ankle, but there was no life in the mangled mass of flesh that lay in front of him.
The officer shook off the hand and turned to run, trapped in the middle of his own worst nightmare and worse. He bolted pell-mell, stepping onto other freshly dug-up sites that exploded right behind him, propelling him faster, more headlong. The clods of dirt raining down from overhead set off even more graves around Daniels, turning the night into a veritable holocaust.
After what seemed like hours of this, Daniels stumbled out onto Aurora Avenue, charred and emotionally scarred for life, but alive. As he flipped open his cell phone to call it in, he looked back over his shoulder at the once-peaceful park.
Flames reached up to the sky from grave after grave, like orange and red fingers grasping at the heavens. It looked like the graves had opened up into the pits of hell.
Daniels was pretty sure that was exactly right.
* * *
Darc surveyed the next photo. Trey had shown unusual dedication and foresight in obtaining these photos. Although Darc could call up the familiar images with little to no effort, the physical presence of these duplicates in front of him allowed for even greater clarity and depth. Not necessary, certainly, but useful.
Even more important, having Trey understand what might await them could potentially lessen his shock in the moment. If his partner had anticipated the snakes, he might have been of more use back in the slaughterhouse than as a simple pincushion.
Trey seemed to be busy looking at the part of the photo that depicted the fiery tombs. He put his face close to the photo, his nose almost touching the paper, and muttered to himself.
“Wow. Dante didn’t like heretics much.”
“Aristotle,” Darc corrected him without thinking.
“Yeah, whatever, man. That’s harsh.” Trey moved his head back from the picture, then closer again, his eyes crossing. “So, which out of the thirty-seven local cemeteries are we going to search?”
“That’s what I hope to glean tomorrow.”
Trey nodded. “Right. The ol’ secret-message-in-a-kid’s-drawing ploy. Dude, I gotta tell you, sometimes you’re just downright sneaky.”
His partner moved on to the next photograph in the group. The eighth circle. Once again, there were multiple levels or layers to this depiction, but the two prominent elements were a stark forest filled with leafless, branchless trees, and a large boiling pot. Darc could see his partner goggling at what was portrayed within the painting and decided to give him additional information, since it was clear he would ask in a moment, regardless of what Darc did or did not do.
“The trees are formed of fossilized suicide victims.”
Trey’s mouth made an O of understanding. He then pointed to the cauldron.
“Okay, dude, but what’s in the pot?”
Right at that moment, both their cell phones rang in unison. Trey glanced at the incoming number, then grunted at his partner.
“Guess we’ll find out which cemetery a little early.”
Darc only hoped it was early enough.
* * *
Looking out over the burning park, Trey couldn’t help but feel a momentary sense of déjà vu. It was the picture. Almost exactly.
To be honest, as frightening as the picture was, seeing it come to life like this was infinitely worse. All of the scenes they had come across so far had been horrific, but none of them put the fear of God in Trey more than this one. It seriously was like looking at the beginning of the Apocalypse.
“Down to
the freakin’ number of graves.” Trey shook his head. “I’m telling you, this killer is on fire.” He stopped and peered sideways at his partner. “No pun intended.”
Darc moved farther down the small driveway leading to the parking area, Trey trotting along behind him. The fires were more bright than any Trey had ever seen, searing his retinas when he accidentally glanced at them, making him see blue-green spots in front of him. The light from the blazes cast wicked, constantly shifting shadows around them both, causing him to feel like his footing was unsure.
Not just his footing. It felt like the whole park was changing second by second. The cemetery he was seeing right now was not the one he had seen a moment ago, and it would morph again here as fast as he could blink.
When they got to the parking lot, Trey stared around him. Everywhere he looked were fire trucks and ambulances. Oh, and firefighters. Lots of them.
But here was the problem. Not a single one of them was moving. One of the firefighters was even smoking a cigarette. Trey walked over to a group of four firefighters who were sitting on the running board of their fire truck, watching the fires burn like they were fireworks and this was the Fourth of July.
“Ummm…a city employee strike I don’t know about?”
One of the firefighters, a big, burly guy with a long, curly blond mustache, grunted at him. “Nothing we can do but let them burn out.”
“Wow,” Trey huffed back. “You guys are really at the top of your game here.”
“Greek fire,” Darc interjected.
Man, Trey hated it when he did that. No matter what, when Darc started spitting out words that made no sense, Trey could rest assured that he was about to feel really stupid. The firefighter glanced up at Trey’s partner, his face showing a glimmer of what looked like respect.
“Exactly.”
“Wait. Fire, who?” Trey asked, pissed that apparently he was the only one who didn’t know what was going on. Again.
“Greek fire. Developed by the Byzantines.” Darc glanced toward the inferno, then nodded at the firefighter. “It is inextinguishable.”
The fireman nodded back, his face getting more animated by the heartbeat. “Matter of fact, water makes it worse.” Trey stared at him in disbelief. Water making fire get worse? That didn’t sound right. The man must’ve seen the look, because he spoke directly to Trey this time, with almost as much heat as the fires themselves were generating. “Why don’t you go piss in there and see what happens?”
“No, thank—” Trey began, waving his hands to ward off even the idea. Then Darc strode directly in front of him, cutting off his view of the gathered firefighters. Darc continued walking toward the raging blazes. This could not be a good idea.
“Hey! Darc!” Trey called after his partner. “Penis fire, remember?”
Darc turned, his body limned in the flickering light of the burning grave sites. “Would he damage this perfect symmetry with a trap?”
Well, there went Trey’s perfect excuse to hang out with the firemen until the flames went out. Crap. “No. No, he wouldn’t,” Trey muttered.
Trey followed along after his partner, even though he knew he wasn’t going to like what he found.
Not. At. All.
* * *
Darc studied the layout of the graves, the distances between the burning sites and the undisturbed ones creating shapes that glowed brightly in his mind. But there was no answer. No matching shape that fit all the information into a pattern. There was some piece of information here. He knew there was. But he could not see it.
The flickering light from the fires did not impede his inner sight. If anything, it set it in sharper relief. Symbols and shapes, spinning about, dancing on the edges of the constantly leaping light of the conflagrations. The light warmed them, comforted them. But it did not cause them to settle into place.
Trey danced from one foot to another in what Darc guessed must be impatience. He had found, in spite of his best efforts to encourage it, that Trey had an extremely limited capacity to figure conclusions out on his own. Darc’s partner also seemed impaired in his ability to keep his ignorance to himself.
If Darc did not discover something soon, he would then have the added distraction of having to field Trey’s near-incessant questions. Darc did not want that to happen.
He surveyed the area, his gaze catching on, and then firmly held by, three trees. No shapes or symbols darted out of the configuration of those trees, and yet…this was the piece of information Darc sought. It was clear that it must be.
Blinking several times, Darc stared at the leafless forms, tracing their outlines in his mind. They quavered in the unsteady light, looking almost like they were moving. Like they were somehow human…
Pointing to the three bare trees, Darc spoke to his partner. “Look familiar?”
“Dude, I hate it when you—”
“Leafless trees?” Darc pressed.
Trey’s eyes widened as he apparently got the reference. His words confirmed it. “Oh, man. Circle number eight.”
Darc nodded. His partner reached into his pocket to draw out his cell phone, flipping it open. Darc reached over and closed it shut once more. “Don’t.”
“But we’ve got to get a crew out here.”
“For what?” Darc watched as the confusion grew on Trey’s face. It was standard procedure, yes. But there was nothing standard about this case.
“Hello? For—”
“I don’t want anyone else to…” Darc’s voice trailed off as he relived the pain of second-guessing himself. “Eighteen dead at the meat plant. The rest in ICU. Another dead here. How many before that? I can’t risk it. I won’t.”
“Whoa. Hold on.” Trey’s expression seemed almost…hurt, if Darc was reading it correctly. Hurt or constipated. “You won’t risk any backup, but you’ll risk me?”
“I didn’t say you had to come.”
Darc saw the conflict in his partner’s face, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He had to keep moving. The urgency was building to a fever pitch. Things were about to happen. Bad things.
Setting his sights toward the trio of leafless birches, Darc moved toward the eighth circle of hell.
CHAPTER 15
Stepping up his pace to catch up with his partner, Trey stumbled over a root or something that was sticking up slightly above the rest of the well-manicured lawn. The light from the Gregorian fires, or whatever the freak they were, was dissipating as they got farther and farther away from them, and he couldn’t see much of what might lie in wait within the wavering shadows.
And that wasn’t even close to his biggest concern here. They had just passed though the seventh circle, with its exploding coffins and ever-burning fires of hell and damnation. It’s not like the next one up was going to be filled with unicorns and pink peonies. Things were about to get real, yo.
At each step in this investigation, the killer had zigged when Trey would’ve sworn he was about to zag. Even Darc was off his game with this guy. No one, no one, put Darc off his game. They had one time gone up against a grand master in chess. A champion at the most strategic game ever, and Darc had barely broken a sweat out-thinking the guy.
So the question they all should be asking: who was this freaky-deek? If he was somebody that could twist his partner into mental knots, Trey wasn’t all that positive he really wanted to know.
The trio of stark-naked trees was still a ways off. There was something resembling a path that seemed to be taking them right to where they needed to go. Apparently, the killer wasn’t making things that hard at this point. One more big ole red flag. Wherever the killer wanted them to go was definitely not on Trey’s top ten vacation destinations list.
But somehow, he was still tromping along, headed up the primrose path—no idea what primroses were, by the way—straight into the jaws of the killer’s version of Art Appreciation 101. Trey must be crazy. Certifiable. He believed the technical term for it had something to do with flying mammals and excrement. That wa
s the only real explanation he could come up with.
The park was oppressively large. Their landmark ahead didn’t seem to be getting any closer, and Trey was starting to sweat. Okay, he sweat by even thinking about exercise, but still, this was a bit excessive. Maybe the killer’s idea was to make them hike themselves to death. Trey wouldn’t put it past him. Death by workout did not sound like fun.
Although, come to think of it, it was a whole lot better than snakes. Yeah, that was something Trey was still hoping he’d be able to take out of the killer’s hide. A leaf rustled off to the side of the path, and Trey almost jumped out of his skin. Okay, no more thinking about snakes for a while. Good plan.
They continued tromping along through what Trey could only describe as something straight out of a gothic story. White marble headstones, some of the oldest ones covered in moss and fungus, peered back at them like teeth thrusting out of the corpse of the earth. Old bones of monsters unknown and unknowable. Trey felt like he was walking through a Bram Stoker novel.
But even worse than the gravestones gleaming in the intermittent firelight were the mausoleums. Large, whitewashed sepulchers, residence to the dearly and not so dearly departed, their entrances gaped open after Trey, hungry mouths waiting to be fed. On his blood and organ meat, probably. Trey’s neck hairs stood at attention, like he had just put his hand on a Van de Graaff generator.
The trees scattered throughout the cemetery loomed over the two detectives like the nuns used to stoop over Trey while he was taking his tests back in his Jesuit school. Observing. Scrutinizing. Judging. That was it. Darc and Trey were surrounded by judgmental trees. Vaguely Catholic ones.
As they finally neared the grouping of skeletal trees that were their landmark, Trey noticed a glow coming from up ahead. It was a different kind of light than the fires that were raging behind them, but it too flickered. It felt warm and homey, as opposed to the harsh blazes they had left in the possibly not-so-capable hands of the Seattle Fire Department.
Okay, yeah, they knew all about the Goliath fires or whatever. They just seemed a little too happy to sit on their butts for Trey’s liking. He knew lazy when he saw it. There was no fooling him. Kinda hard to cheat a cheater.