by E. A. Copen
The fire engines finally pulled up, driving onto the sidewalk. Firefighters in full gear jumped out of the truck and immediately got to work hooking things up to put out the fire that had engulfed half the house. Behind it, a squad rolled into the street, red and blue lights flashing.
I turned to Abigail, who still wore a fearful expression. “Are we on the same page?”
She glanced at her husband and shrank back, unsure.
“Help me help you, Abigail.”
Her eyes finally focused on me. She blinked and tears fell, washing smoke and blood off her cheeks. “Yeah, okay.”
Chapter Eleven
The firefighters got the fire out while the EMTs gave Tim and me bottles of water and took our vitals.
They loaded Abigail onto a stretcher and rolled her toward the squad car, affixing an oxygen mask to her face. All the preliminary readings said the mother and baby were fine, but they would run her to the hospital just to be sure. Police would probably take her statement there. As long as she didn’t implicate me, I would not get involved beyond where I was already. She’d tell them whatever she was going to tell them, and my objections wouldn’t convince her otherwise.
Tim, on the other hand, remained on the front lawn with me and the dog, Caesar, staring at his house as they doused the flames. It didn’t look like the house would be a total loss, but it would need some serious remodeling to be livable again.
“What’s happening to me?” He petted the dog on his lap absently. “I’m not a violent man.”
“Neither were John and Darnell, were they?” I asked.
He shook his head.
Well, at least I had confirmed part of my theory. This monster, whatever it was, was targeting people with magic and probably feeding off them. The nightmares were either a side effect of the feeding or related to something I didn’t yet understand about what was going on. My biggest remaining question was why?
I understood a supernatural creature’s need to feed, but why drive his victims mad and force them to kill the people they loved? Abigail was a Norm from what Tim had told me. She wasn’t involved with the coven and didn’t even know he was. She’d been horrified when I mentioned it in front of her. Magic wasn’t part of her world, and she’d had no idea she’d married a man with any magical talent. As normal as a Norm could be. So why point his victims toward killing Norms? That couldn’t just be a side effect too.
It had to be getting something out of this long, drawn-out torture of victims and their family. Otherwise, why keep doing it? It was a lot of effort on this thing’s part. Most predatory monsters would’ve just eaten their fill and left the bodies behind.
At least I’d saved Tim and his wife. For now. If he fell asleep, he might be right back at it. I’d have to make sure he stayed awake like me until the monster was caught. Great. Like I needed someone else to babysit.
Babysit. Crap!
I jumped up and sprinted for my car, where Remy was still locked inside. She was bundled in plenty of blankets, so she was warm, but that didn’t excuse my forgetting about her. I dropped the key fob when I got it out and then fumbled to recover it. It took two tries to unlock the door; all that lack of sleep was affecting my coordination. If I didn’t get some soon, I wouldn’t be any use to anybody, myself included.
Remy stirred and gave me a blank one-eyed and sleepy look when I pulled her out of the car seat. “God, I am a shit dad,” I mumbled, cradling her against me.
I leaned against the car, closed my eyes, and nearly drifted off to sleep there. Nightmares or no nightmares, I had to get some rest. Couldn’t put Remy at risk, though. That meant sleeping alone in an empty house, which meant finding a sitter. Someone who wasn’t Emma if I didn’t want to tank that relationship.
Forcing myself awake, I glanced at my watch. It was edging toward four. No daycare on Thanksgiving, so that was out, and I couldn’t bother Nate. I’d already pressed my luck where Leah was concerned. Dropping Remy on them during a holiday would be akin to blowing up their house. No, I couldn’t do that.
I sighed. In the absence of a sitter, I would have to find a way to secure myself, so I couldn’t get up and cause trouble. That gave me an idea.
With Remy in my arms, I walked back to find Tim on his feet, glancing around anxiously at the small crowd of neighbors gathering on their lawns to watch. He spotted the baby in my arms, and his eyes widened.
“I need caffeine,” I told him once I got close. “How about you?”
“Absolutely.” His whole body relaxed at the prospect before he slapped his forehead. “I mean, I have to call my insurance and get to the hospital to be with Abigail. Plus, I have to find someone to watch Caesar.”
“All that can wait until you and I have had a chat.”
“But Abigail—”
I shifted Remy into one arm and put the other around Tim’s shoulders, guiding him back toward my car. “I’m not so sure Abigail will want to see you, Tim. Look at it from her perspective. You tied her up, hurt her, and set the house on fire. She’s terrified.”
“All the more reason I should be with her.” He pulled away from me.
“Maybe, if you weren’t the one she was so scared of. Give me five minutes of your time, and I promise if I don’t have anything to say you find helpful, you can be on your way.”
Tim frowned and looked me up and down, pausing on my face. “It’s happening to you too, isn’t it?”
“What makes you say that?”
He gestured to me with both hands. “I can feel the magic coming off of you. It’s like standing next to an electric fence on the fritz. And you look as tired as I feel.”
“You can feel the magic?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not particularly gifted, but I am a sensitive, Mr. Kerrigan. It’s about all I can do without the others.” His face pinched at the memory of his coven members.
I nodded, suddenly uncomfortable. The man had to be grieving the loss of his friends. For him to be going through this at the same time, it had to be near overwhelming, especially for someone who wasn’t used to their life falling apart every other day.
We talked to the fire marshal on the scene and explained how shaken he was, how much he wanted to get to the hospital to see his wife. They didn’t want to let us leave the scene, sweeping suspicious eyes over both of us, but finally relented after checking our IDs and taking our phone numbers. I may have dropped Emma’s name once or twice on the down-low too.
Since my car only had two seats, which would’ve left no room for Caesar or Remy, we piled into Tim’s Prius and pulled into the night, windows down. It was cool out, but we both agreed we needed the air to stay awake.
“So, what’s really going on?” Tim asked as he took a turn at a snail’s pace.
I leaned into the breeze coming from the window. “Not sure how much I know and how much is conjecture at this point, but the going theory is that there’s some kind of monster feeding off magic. The nightmares and murders are related somehow, but I’m not sure how yet. So far, there have been eight deaths attributed to this thing that I know of, but it may not be limited to New Orleans. The number could be higher.”
“Eight?” He paused to count. “Darnell had a son. That’s three. John’s family makes four more. That’s only seven.”
I winced. “I think my father’s death might be connected, but I can’t prove it yet.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. He was an asshole.”
Tim glanced at me. “But your father, did he kill anyone else?”
“Didn’t get the chance,” I said, fiddling with a vent. “He was in prison. Cellmate was in solitary from what I hear. He was alone when he killed himself.”
“I’m sorry.”
If Tim didn’t stop apologizing for my dead father, I might lose it. Lack of sleep was putting me on edge, making my temper shorter. For the first time, it occurred to me that in the days leading to the murders, those families must’ve been stressed to their bre
aking points.
Desperate to change the subject, I cleared my throat and continued. “It strikes when you fall asleep. Seems to have a paralyzing effect so it can feed on you with this long, straw-like tongue.”
“A proboscis.”
“A what type of biscuit?” I tilted my head.
Tim cracked a tired smile that quickly faded. “Like a butterfly. It’s how a number of insects actually feed. In invertebrates, it’s a mouth-like appendage used for sucking. Usually a nose for vertebrate species, though. An elephant’s trunk is a good example of that kind. But it’s called a proboscis.”
I stared at him. “I’ve had like two hours of sleep in as many days. I can only imagine you’ve had less over a longer period. How are you even functional enough to remember that?”
“I teach high school science. Biology and life science. Knowledge is my job.” He frowned. “Though I might lose my job depending on what Abigail tells the hospital and the police.”
“Try not to focus on that now. Losing your job isn’t as bad a losing your family and your life.”
He sniffled. “Might lose her too. God, what did I do?”
His arms were shaking. I needed to distract him, getting him thinking about something else besides what had just happened, or I’d lose him.
“As long as you stay awake, it can’t feed on you as far as I know,” I told him reassuringly. “But maybe it’s best if you don’t hang around your wife for a bit? At least until this is over. Just in case I’m wrong.”
Tim nodded.
There was a twenty-four-hour coffee shop near the highway headed out of town going west, the kind of place truckers frequented. It was a dive, and I wouldn’t trust the food, but no one would bother us. The few truckers that had stopped in were tucked into their coffee and plates of food, waiting for their shower ticket to come up.
I bought two black coffees while Tim sat at a table with Remy. They hadn’t let him bring his dog in, and that left him even more nervous, but it couldn’t be helped. He thanked me when I returned with the biggest cup of black coffee I could buy and handed it to him, keeping one for myself.
“Who are you exactly?” he asked after the first sip.
I pulled out my chair and sat down next to Remy, who was asleep in her little carrier, all tucked in. “You ever hear of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?”
His eyes widened.
“I’m the pale one. But forget everything you think you know. All the important books got us wrong. We aren’t harbingers of the end of days. We’ve got jobs to do just like every other supernatural entity. In short, the four of us are supposed to help keep things in balance between the worlds of gods, monsters, and magic.”
Tim blinked. “Wow. And here I thought just being in a coven was exciting.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not as glamorous as it sounds.” I swallowed a mouthful of too-hot coffee. It burned all the way down and then sat in my stomach like a glop of acid. “How’d you, Darnell, and John meet?”
According to what Emma had said, they were all from different backgrounds, with no one thing connecting them. Nothing, that was, except for all being in the same coven. That didn’t tie them to my father or me. I was still looking for a connection aside from magic. There were enough magical things in this city for a monster to feed off of that it had to have a preference. We might be able to predict its next moves.
“Well, we all knew each other from The Farm.”
I almost choked on my coffee. The Farm was another name for Angola, Louisiana State Penitentiary. The same place my father had died. The same prison I’d just walked out of.
“Not that I’m a convict or anything,” Tim continued, unaware of my shock. “Can’t have a record and teach. But I taught GED classes up there before I married Abigail. I decided it was too dangerous, and I didn’t want her living in a prison town, so I quit and got a job over at Benjamin Franklin High School. Better salary. Better house. Everything was better before all this.”
“What about Darnell and John?” John didn’t strike me as the kind of guy with a record, but I didn’t know what he’d done for a living. Maybe he’d worked at the prison too.
“John was Warden Kane’s personal accountant. We ran into each other one day, checking out of the prison at the same time. They gave me his wallet by mistake.” Tim smiled. “After that, we were near-instant friends. I knew he had magic, and when we talked about it, his face really lit up, you know? He didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it either. Guess he’d already been to see most of the witches in the Quarter. Didn’t hit it off. They aren’t that welcoming to men.”
I grabbed a couple packets of sugar and dumped them in my coffee to make it palatable. “What about Darnell? He connected to the prison too?”
Tim nodded. “But not like us. He has a brother there doing time.”
So that’s how this thing found us. Men with magic connected to Angola. I wondered if there were other prisoners complaining of nightmares or a sudden uptick in inmate-on-inmate violence. To find out, I’d have to talk to Warden Kane again. I’d call him in the morning…after some sleep.
“My father was an inmate there,” I said. “I was just there a few days ago to identify his body. There’s the connection. It must be how this thing is choosing victims.”
“Why?” He shook his head.
I shrugged. “Could be that’s where it’s stuck. Some supernatural entities need certain conditions met to move from their plane of existence to ours. Might be there’s an opening on prison grounds it’s trying to open wider so it can come through.”
Actually, that would explain why it was only showing up in dreams. Dreams were a sort of an in-between world. Supernatural beings could make themselves visible and interact easier in dreams than in reality. Ghosts often appeared there first in a haunting, even if the people being haunted didn’t remember it. It was why dream interpretation got folded in with paranormal investigations anymore. Dreams were a window into the subconscious part of the mind, and the subconscious was usually easier to influence than the conscious mind.
Or something like that. It was all magical theory mumbo-jumbo, which bored me to death. Personally, I didn’t usually care how magic worked, as long as it worked.
“How does knowing that help?” Tim gripped his coffee cup with both hands and leaned forward.
“Well,” I said, still thinking, “maybe the common location will be important somehow when trying to take this thing down.”
I hoped not. I didn’t want to go back to Angola. Over the last few days, I’d already spent more time inside prison walls than I wanted to. But if it meant ending this, I’d do whatever it took.
Tim nodded as if he understood, though I could tell he was still lost. Hell, I was still lost. “What can I do?” he asked.
“First of all, stay awake as long as you can. But if you feel like you’re going to fall asleep, get somewhere safe. Tie yourself down or secure yourself in some way. It won’t stop the monster from feeding on you, but at least you won’t get up and hurt anyone else.”
Tim’s expression was grave. I hadn’t offered him a decent answer. There were no decent answers. Whatever this thing was, it would kill both of us if I didn’t find it and stop it soon, but I reasoned it would be better for the two of us to die than for us to take our families with us.
“Was there anyone else in your coven? Anyone else you know of at Angola who had magic? Could be a prisoner, correctional officers, regular visitors…”
He tapped his cup in thought. “Wasn’t like I went around asking. People would think I was crazy.” He met my eyes. “If the nightmares are a symptom, you’d best ask Warden Kane if there are any prisoners having them. Maybe some of them are sleepwalking like I was.”
I nodded and stood.
Panic touched the corners of his eyes as I collected Remy’s car seat and my coffee. “Where are you going?”
“No offense, Tim, but I can’t babysit you. I’ve given you the best advice I hav
e, but you’ll have to look after yourself from here on out. I’m going to go try to deal with this thing before somebody else gets hurt.”
His chair scraped loudly against the floor as he jumped to his feet. “I can help! I may not be able to throw around big, flashy spells, but I do have a little magic. I can sense it. I could help you find anyone who’s got powers.”
I winced. Poor guy. He just wanted to make himself useful in the wake of all the tragedy, but he’d be more of a hindrance than a help. I couldn’t tell him that, though, since it’d be cruel. Walking away without giving him something to do, even if it was just busywork, would be mean and dangerous. He might follow me or to do something stupid. Nothing more dangerous than a desperate man with a little magic.
“The best thing you can do right now is look after yourself,” I told him. “But if you need a project to keep you busy while you stay awake, see what you can learn about dreams. How to control them. How to interact inside them, and maybe a thing or two about how to kill monsters in them. Just research, though, Tim. Don’t do anything without calling me first.” I scribbled my cell number down on a slip of paper and slid it to him.
Tim picked up the paper and glanced at it. “I’ll text you,” he offered hopefully. “Then you’ll have my number too.”
I nodded, though I doubted I’d need to get in touch with him until things were already over. If it made him feel better to think he was helping, I saw no harm in it.
Remy and I left the truck stop just before five in the morning by cab. It was early enough there were only a few cars on the road. I was almost too tired to keep my eyes open, even with all the coffee. I’d had enough that my stomach was cramping. There was such a thing as too much coffee, believe it or not.
By the time I got back to where I’d left my car, the fire was out. The trucks had left the scene. The only sign they’d ever been there at all was the deep tire tracks in the front lawn. It was still before dawn, so I couldn’t see the full damage to the house, but even in the dark, it didn’t look good.