“Just about.”
“And this one day is too much for you?”
“Yeah. It’s too much. I’m finished.”
“You don’t sound like much of a road dog to me. You sound like a coward.”
“Carrie,” Sal said. “Come on.”
“No, you come on! You’re not a detective? Fine. But road dogs don’t run from a fight, Sal. They run at it.”
Sal looked at the computer. He wasn’t even sure how to turn the damn thing on. “If I was to try,” he said, “what would I have to do?”
“It’s easy. I’ll walk you through it.”
* * *
The house was located in the outskirts of Coyote Township, where the homes were run-down summer shacks that blue-collar city people used to own. Decades before, when there was nothing in the area to do except hunt and fish, the factory workers in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh would come out to Vieira County for the weekend. The houses were cheaply made and never meant to be full-time residences. Some still didn’t have running water. Over time, they’d been purchased by absentee landlords. Florida dwellers who hired property managers to rent the houses to anyone on welfare. They didn’t care what happened in those houses because the government always paid well and they paid on time.
Weeds grew up to the windows and buckets filled with cigarette butts sat out front of most of them. There were ticks and tires and broken glass and heroin needles hidden in the tall grass of their front yards. When Carrie had been a cop in Coyote, Bill Waylon had issued a standing order that no one went on any calls there alone.
They found the address. The mailbox sat on a rotted wooden post, stuffed full. There were bundled advertising circulars scattered around the bottom of the mailbox, left when the mailman could no longer force anything else inside it.
Carrie parked the car. “Give me a second. I have to get something out of the trunk.”
He got out and went around the back to see her open the trunk lid and lean in. There was an electronic safe built into the rear compartment. The buttons beeped as Carrie pushed them.
The safe’s lid popped open and Carrie undid her belt. She slid the worn holster holding her pistol off her belt and stuffed it into the safe. She drew out a much larger pistol with an electronic attachment mounted below the frame. She slammed a full magazine into the gun and jacked the slide back to chamber a round, then she pressed a button on the electronic attachment and lowered her ear to it, listening to it hum.
“What is that?” Rein asked.
“An upgrade,” Carrie said. She dug inside the safe for the weapon’s thermoplastic polymer holster, molded to fit the weapon and the attachment. She threaded the belt through the new holster and said, “Let’s go.”
They waded through the grass toward the shack. It swept past their knees. The house reeked of damp and mold as they walked toward it. There were no cars in the driveway. A television was on inside. Some kind of game show. A woman had just won a prize and the audience was cheering.
Rein stayed at the front of the house and Carrie checked around the back. The grass grew taller along the sides, and the backyard was filled with junk. Discarded lottery scratch-off tickets. Rusted lawn mowers. An old Chevy sitting on cinderblocks. Empty Amazon shipping boxes. Bags of glass bottles and rusted cans that were intended to be taken to the recycling center for money, but never were. A huge cat hissed at Carrie from behind the house, then vanished into the grass. There was a barn behind the house, set way in the back, and the cat was headed toward it.
She heard the front door bang open. “What you all doing lurking round my property?”
“Are you Helen Moon?”
“Who’s askin’?”
“We’re looking for your nephew Gregory,” Rein said.
“I ain’t seen him. Now you go on and get the hell out of here before I call the police.”
Carrie hurried around the side of the house. The woman was dressed in a large, billowing, nightshirt. It was light blue and see-through in the sunlight. She was bald except for a few lengths of curly gray hair and had no eyebrows. “Good afternoon,” Carrie said, fishing her badge out of her shirt. “I’m—”
“We’re with social security,” Rein said.
Carrie dropped her badge back down inside her shirt.
“We just wanted to make sure the payments for Gregory Moon’s housing are coming to the right place. Are you Helen?”
“I am,” she said. “What payments?”
“Housing and care expenses for any recently-released wards of the state,” Rein said.
“A thousand dollars a month,” Carrie added.
“Nobody said nothing about any payments!” Helen said. “That boy showed up out of the blue telling me he’s my nephew and begging me to put him up. He said he needed a place to stay and promised to pay me, but I ain’t seen nothing of it! Then he ask can he borrow my car. I ain’t seen no money, I ain’t seen no car, I ain’t seen nothing.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we showed up,” Rein said. “All we need to do is verify his living arrangements and we can get you all set up for payments.”
“A thousand dollars a month?”
“That’s right,” Carrie said.
“Shit, you can verify anything you want.”
“Excellent,” Rein said. “Do you mind letting us in to see his room?”
“He ain’t got no room. He just sleeps on the couch when he comes through. Ain’t got but one bedroom and he sure as hell ain’t sleeping next to me.”
Rein looked past her into the house and saw the couch. “Where does he keep his things?”
“I made him put all his stuff out in the barn. Don’t ask me what all he has out there. Do I get any extra money for providing him storage too?”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Carrie said.
“Do you mind if we go out and look at the barn?” Rein asked.
“Go on, see whatever you want,” Helen said, and she waved them off.
Carrie led Rein around the house toward the barn. “Watch yourself. There’s a feral-looking cat back here.”
Rein grimaced at the sight of the tall grass all around them. “I hate cats.”
“You do? Why? They’re self-sufficient. Cuddly. They take care of rodents. Have you ever seen a cat fight a snake? There’s videos of it online. The snakes go crazy trying to strike the cat, but the cat is always too fast. The snakes wear themselves out and the cat just sits there licking its paws until it’s time to strike. Cats are cool.”
He waded through the grass behind her. “When people die, their cats eat their faces. I’ve seen it.”
“I don’t know why I even talk to you, Rein.”
“I get that a lot.”
They pulled the barn door open and let the sunlight shine in. Most of the barn’s concrete slab floor was empty except for scattered hay and rat droppings. There was something else. Carrie pulled her gun and touched a button alongside the attachment. A bright beam of light flared from beneath the gun, illuminating the corner of the barn where she aimed it. There was an antique stone-sharpening wheel sitting upright inside of a wooden frame. A pedal pump was attached to one side of the frame, with a rusted metal bucket sitting next to it. Carrie aimed the gun’s light at the cement below the wheel and saw it was still wet.
“Whatever he sharpened there, he did it recently,” she said.
The walls were bare plywood nailed to the support beams. Some nails had missed the beams and stuck out from the walls, rusted and sharp. Above them, lying on the rafters that formed the support structure for the roof, was another piece of plywood.
“Do you see a way up?” Carrie asked. There were no stairs or ladder. There wasn’t even a rope.
Rein pointed at the rafters. They were at least eight feet up. “He must jump.”
Carrie holstered her gun and sprang into the air. She managed to touch the wooden beam above but not enough to grab it. “Here. Lift me up.”
He put his hands under her armpits. Carri
e flinched and jerked away. “Wait. I’m really ticklish there.”
“Well, how do you want me to lift you up?”
“Here.” She held her arms out and took a deep breath. “Try again.”
Rein put his hands back against her sides and she jerked away again, so hard she nearly hit him. “Nope. Lift me somewhere else.”
Rein looked up at the rafters, measuring how high up she needed to be. “Spread your legs.”
“Excuse me?”
Rein circled around her and dropped down to one knee and lowered his head. “Walk backward, open your legs and sit down on me.”
Carrie laughed as she backed up. “You sure do know how to show a girl a good time, Rein.”
“Don’t get too excited,” he said, as he stuck his head between her legs and guided her backward onto his shoulders. “I used to do this with Bill all the time when we had to reach something.”
Carrie said, “Whoa, easy,” as Rein came up from his knees and raised her into the air. For one second, she wobbled and would have fallen, until she grabbed the sides of Rein’s face and held on tight. When she was stable she said, “You used to lift Bill like this?”
“Of course not,” Rein said. “He used to lift me.”
Rein cupped the bottoms of her feet in his hands and told her to reach. Carrie raised her arms as high as she could and was able to wrap her fingers around the rafter above. She slowly stood up, lifting herself as Rein pushed. She pulled herself up onto the beam, hanging over it, suspended in the air over top of Rein.
“Be careful,” he said.
“No shit.”
She worked herself up on the beam, until she was spread out across the next one and had enough balance to situate herself. It was too dark to see more than a few feet in front of her. Everything was cast in shadows except for the few slivers of light getting through the barn’s ceiling at the seams. Carrie crawled across the rafter toward the plywood platform and stopped when she saw multiple pages of printed-out photographs scattered there. Each of them had pieces of spent masking tape stuck across the top, like they’d been hung up and cast aside.
There were satellite images of Linda Shelley’s house. Patricia Martin’s house. Alexis Dole’s house. The Penningtons’. Surrounding them were photographs of the people themselves. She picked up the nearest page and saw Linda’s picture, taken from her psychology association page. There were several more of her from a charity function she’d attended and the local press had covered.
Carrie heard something move on the platform and froze, able to do nothing except clutch the rafter so she didn’t fall off.
The board creaked as the cat from the field crept forward. It opened its jaws wide to show Carrie its curved fangs and hissed at her again. Something was writhing on the platform at the cat’s feet, and she saw it had a mouse pinned to the wood with its claws.
“Get!” Carrie shouted. She looked down at Rein. “That goddamn cat again.”
“Told you,” Rein said.
There was a book on Masonic rituals and customs. The Satanic Bible. Another on Aleister Crowley. Each book had other pages stuffed inside of them of things Moon had printed out. Carrie pulled one out and saw a page on the Blood Eagle Viking ritual. “It’s all here, Rein,” she said.
“Keep looking.”
Carrie pulled herself forward and wiggled onto the platform. There wasn’t room to stand, only to crouch. There seemed to be a thousand nails coming through the rooftop boards, aimed at her head, and they glinted in the light coming down through the gaps in the plywood.
At the far end of the platform, she saw a pencil case filled with markers and a roll of masking tape. Pages were taped to the rafters there. The first was a printed-out photograph of Bill Waylon. It was an older picture of him, from when he was Chief of Coyote. Below him was a photograph of Jeri Waylon, standing at Bill’s side at a dinner party. The pages below were all of Kate, their youngest daughter, taken from the girl’s Instagram page. In some photos, she was flinging her blond hair over her shoulder and posing, looking as mature and beautiful as a supermodel. In others, she looked like a goofy kid, sticking her tongue out and making faces.
Beneath Kate’s photograph was a picture of Saint Margaret of the Antioch, the namesake of the church where Father Ihan worked and Tucker Pennington cleaned. Saint Margaret of Antioch was printed beneath it. Renowned for her beauty, she refused to renounce Christ before Provost Olybrius in Rome, AD 291.
Olybrius ordered her skin torn from her living body. Still she refused.
There was something on the floor, tucked beneath the pencil case. Carrie picked it up and unfolded it. They were medieval paintings of the tortures Saint Margaret endured. Two men were using sharp metal instruments to flay the young woman alive. Her face was turned upward toward heaven.
Something was written in marker along the bottom. Carrie had to raise it into the light to read it.
Careful not to kill her too soon.
Must peel her slow.
Carrie looked at the photograph of Kate Waylon hanging above Saint Margaret of Antioch. She looked down at the stone wheel where Moon had sat, probably only a little while before they’d arrived, sharpening something. She leapt for the rafters and scrambled to get down.
20
Gregory Moon sat in his aunt Helen’s car watching Bill Waylon’s house. He’d only been there fifteen minutes before some nosy bitch walked her dog past him. She stared at the car and at his face the entire time. A man came past after that, walking a different dog. The postman drove his white truck down the street and parked directly behind Moon so he could feed the mail into the mailbox at the driveway on the right. Moon had to move the car up a few feet, which put him out of position. It was infuriating.
He needed a new plan. It had been child’s play both of the other times. Linda Shelley had left her front door unlocked and he’d slipped into her bedroom closet while she was in the shower.
He’d originally planned on visiting Alexis Dole the next night, but that one-eyed freak was ready for him. She had no idea who he was, but she was ready. Visiting her would take some care and thought, he decided. He’d opted for the low-hanging fruit of the Martin family.
The Martins met him at their door when he knocked and he told them he was a newspaper reporter covering the Pennington case. He gave them a business card with a made-up name and the name of the local newspaper. It had cost him twelve dollars at the office supply store to get the cards made.
I’m working on a story about your experience, he told them. I can see it growing into a novel. There would be money in it, if you’re interested. I just don’t think it’s right that he be let free while good people such as yourselves continue to suffer.
Mr. Martin looked at the business card and then at his wife. If we don’t tell our story, someone else will, he’d said. Come in and let’s talk.
In ancient times, people believed in vampires, but they also believed that a vampire could not hurt you unless you invited him into your home. There was a lesson in that, Moon thought. A lesson the Martins learned too late.
The Martins coaxed their daughter down the stairs from her bedroom. She was heavily medicated, he could tell. This man wants to talk to you, Patricia, the mother said.
Start off very slowly with her, the father said. It’s going to take a while for her to open up to you.
Of course, of course, Moon told them. Do you mind if I get my bag?
They didn’t mind and Moon retrieved his black schoolbag. It was extralarge and well-made. He slung it over his shoulder and carried it into the house and closed the door behind him and locked it. They didn’t notice him sliding the dead bolt into position. He carried his bag to the table and laid it in front of himself. He unzipped it and reached in while they spoke.
Mrs. Martin was trying to tell him their requirements for participating in the story.
Her voice droned on and on and he sat there nodding and smiling and saying of course and meanwhile he had his hand on
the knife inside his bag. When it became too much to bear, he pulled the knife out of the bag and held it up to show it to them.
What’s that? Mr. Martin had asked. Some kind of writing prop?
Stupid cattle. They were still confused. They’d been coaxed into the slaughterhouse by a butcher’s smile and empty promises.
He’d aimed the knife at them. We’re moving into the basement.
Now listen, Mr. Martin had said, and he kept yammering until Moon stabbed him in the left shoulder. He twisted the knife’s handle until the man screamed and then, after that, everyone did as they were told.
The thing Moon knew, and the thing most people don’t, is that there is no discussion. When the vampire enters your house, you either fight, flee, or die. There is no talking about it. No negotiating. The vampire has come for one thing. He won’t be dissuaded by conversation.
Mrs. Martin had trouble understanding that, so he helped her. He’d found a pair of pliers in his bag and wrapped them around her tongue as he cut with the knife, shucking her like a clam. After that, she didn’t have so much to say.
Everything he’d done had gone smoothly, right up until he’d driven into Bill Waylon’s neighborhood and found it was a fucking suburban paradise full of soccer moms who stayed home all day and walked their dogs past his fucking car a thousand times wondering what he was doing there. All of the houses were single homes of the same boring design with the same boring two-car garages sitting on the same boring plot. It was the land of middle managers. Old cheerleaders. Children who had college savings accounts opened when they were born and took tennis lessons.
A car pulled into the driveway of the house across the street from Bill Waylon’s. A large SUV with sparkling black paint and cut-out cartoon figures of a man, woman, and two children on the back window. A woman came out, dressed in spandex workout clothes. The rear passenger door behind her opened and a little boy jumped out of the car, bouncing up and down on the driveway with both feet. The woman scooped him up in her arms. She snapped her fingers at someone else in the backseat and said, “Come on!” A little girl, maybe a year or two older than the boy, slid across the seat toward her. The woman held out her hand and helped the little girl down.
Blood Angel Page 22