Dirty Deeds

by D V Wolfe

  I closed my eyes and spit, trying to clear the crap out of my mouth. Then I realized my mouth was burning. “Holy shit, Kess!” I yelled, coughing as some of whatever it was went down the back of my throat. “What the hell was that?”

  “Newgrange dirt,” Kess said. “The most sacred of ground.” Kess took a step back and looked at me. “There is something dark surrounding you on all sides. Competing forces, yearning for your destruction.”

  I hadn’t told Kess that my soul belonged to Hell. I felt like that might have made her hesitate to help me, all those years ago. I wasn’t sure where heaven and hell fit into her Celt practices but based on the greeting I’d just gotten, my guess was, nowhere good.

  “We’ve been hunting a lot of bad stuff lately,” I said, hoping that she’d accept that answer and move on. She kept her gaze on me and there was a strange weakness in my legs as I stared into those unblinking green eyes.

  “Oh shit!” Noah said behind Kess. She broke eye contact with me and moved past me. I leaned against the nearest wall, trying to get my balance back and heart rate to slow. I looked around Kess and saw what Noah had been talking about. Vix had gotten an arm free and was yanking at her hair, pulling it out by the root.

  “She has been taken by will sickness,” Kess said, crossing the room away from us. She turned to look back at Sprig, motioning him to her. “Lay her here,” she pointed to the floor in front of her. I looked around. Piles of leaves and what looked like grass clippings were scattered everywhere. Kess didn’t have furniture, besides a fridge, and from the state of the house, it didn’t look like she ever had house guests, well, except for hunters. This was probably for the best considering the ‘house clothes’ she preferred to wear and the shock that it caused if you weren’t expecting it. Kess bent over to examine Vix’s face and Noah slapped both hands up to cover his eyes. I did my best to strangle the laughter in my throat. Noah turned on his heel and lowered one hand long enough to punch me in the arm.

  “Shove it, Bane,” Noah said and then returned his gaze to the floor.

  Sprig had sat down cross-legged on the floor and propped his sister’s head on his knee. He was holding the hand of her free arm, even as it whipped around in his grasp, trying to break free and go back to ripping at her hair. He was humming something, low and even, in his throat. Kess joined him several octaves higher. In seconds, a strange buzz that felt like low-voltage electricity was surging over my skin. I felt dizzy and like I couldn’t draw enough air. I slid down the wall to sit on the floor and watched as Kess moved to the fridge in one corner and pulled out what looked like folded laundry. She knelt on the other side of Sprig and as she leaned forward, the tips of the antlers she wore caught the first glow of dawn’s light coming from the window behind her. She shook out the folded fabric and wrapped a piece around Vix’s upper arm, tying it around her bicep. She wrapped another under Vix’s hair, tying it at her hairline. She kept humming with Sprig while she worked. After about five minutes, Vix’s color returned to normal and she looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

  “She’s at rest now,” Kess said quietly, putting a hand on Sprig’s shoulder. She stood and looked down at the pair of them. “This will give us time.”

  “What’s ‘will sickness’?” Noah asked, looking over at me.

  “Will sickness,” Kess began, turning to face us. “Affects fae when an outside force is trying to possess their will.” Kess approached him, causing him to turn beet red and focus his gaze on the ground again.

  “So something is trying to control Vix?” I asked. Kess smiled sadly and turned to look back at Vix and Sprig.

  “So why isn’t Sprig affected?” Noah asked.

  “Sprig is not an adept dominant. This plane is not his home. And it shows. In the Otherworld, he is undoubtedly a force to be revered.” She smiled at Sprig who hadn’t moved his eyes off his sister’s face. “But here…” She sighed and wandered off into the other room.

  Noah looked at me. “Should we...follow her?”

  I shook my head. “Nah, she’ll wander back in when she’s ready.” Noah held a hand out to me and I took it, pulling myself up. We went over to stand beside Sprig and look down at Vix, who’s whole body looked like it was melting into the carpet. The cream-colored silk sheets she was wrapped in were bloodstained and ripped where it looked like her arms had been fighting to get out of the tight wrappings. Her face was relaxed now, her skin had become less mottled as her anguish turned to stillness, and now the scratches on her face and arms stood out more clearly. They were oddly uniform and…

  “Am I seeing things, or is that some kind of pattern?” Noah asked.

  He definitely wasn’t seeing things. Covering her face and arm, it looked as if she’d scratched and cut herself in a pattern forming ‘x’s. The scratches were deep and the ends of the ‘x’s were curved.

  “Those marks,” Kess said behind Noah and me, causing us to jump. “Are how we will trace the source of the ‘will sickness’.” Kess was holding a large tome which she set on the floor next to Sprig. “This may take some time. I will need to make preparations.”

  Noah and I turned to watch her float to the phone on the wall and dial. She propped the phone between her ear and shoulder and carefully removed her crown of antlers. “Morris?” She said, her voice suddenly very average sounding with a hint of New Jersey in her accent. “I’m not coming in today. I’m cramping so much I can’t tell if I’m coming or going. Tell Janice to check my leg of the park today, will ya? Yeah. Gonna binge watch some TV and eat some Haagen-Dazs. Thanks, Morris, I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. G’bye.” She hung up and carefully replaced her antler crown before turning to look at us. I almost felt like giving her a slow clap.

  She studied Noah and me as if just remembering we were in the room at all. “I will tend to the fae,” Kess said, her voice returning to the ethereal quality I was used to. “Thank you for not yanking them.”

  “Yanking?” Noah asked.

  “She means ganking them,” I said to Noah out of the corner of my mouth. “I asked her the last time I was here if I’d need to gank them.”

  “And thank you,” Kess continued as if we hadn’t spoken. “For bringing them to my care. I will enter the Otherworld and draw from it to sustain and heal them.”

  “And the ‘will sickness’,” I said. “Would Vix have had to come into contact with this other force to get it?”

  Kess shook her head. “It will take time to unravel what has happened. With fae healing, we must first find the end of the thread of sickness and then work our way back towards the source.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Kess,” I looked around and saw a Sharpie marker by the phone. I grabbed a large leaf from the pile by my feet and hustled over to the marker. I scribbled my cell number on the leaf and held it out to her. Kess looked pained, but took the leaf, running it through her fingers before looking back up at me. “My cell phone number,” I said. “If you need anything or,” I jerked my head at Sprig who was still completely focused on his sister. “If they do, just give me a call.”

  Kess dropped the leaf back to the floor and lunged forward, grabbing my face in both her hands. “The darkness which follows you is growing closer,” she said, her eyes boring into mine, willing me not to blink or look away. I was in a vice between her hands. “Do not let the darkness win.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, unsure of what else to say. I didn’t know how she’d react if I told her I knew about the darkness. I even knew what day the darkness was going to pound my face into the ground like a playground bully. I wasn’t sure if she’d call me at all if she knew what I’d done. Though, it might be a moot point. When she’d lunged forward, she’d dropped the leaf I wrote my number on back into the pile at her feet. Kess released my face, nodded once, and disappeared back into the other room. I crossed to Sprig and was about to put a hand on his shoulder when I remembered my shirt was still on inside out and it would hurt if I touched him. Instead, I just leaned down to lo
ok him in the face. His eyes looked up from Vix briefly to meet my gaze. “If you need to,” I said. “Call me.”

  He nodded and I turned to usher Noah back out the front door.

  9

  We climbed back into Lucy and I turned her engine over.

  “I may go blind,” Noah said

  “You held it together pretty well,” I said as I twisted in my seat to back us out to the road. “Well at least we didn’t stay for dinner,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Noah asked.

  I sighed. “It’s something all the hunters say to each other when we have to consult Kess. ‘Don’t use the salt’.”

  “You mean like the rock salt shells?”

  I shook my head. “No, I mean like Kess’ salt shaker.”

  “What? Why?” Noah asked.

  “Because she keeps it full of LSD,” I said. Noah didn’t say anything and I glanced over at him. “It’s Kess’ personal preference. She says it helps ‘guide her towards enlightenment’.”

  “And a hunter accidentally used it once?” Noah asked, grinning.

  I nodded. “Howard Shook. He was dating Kess and the authorities found him a couple of towns over parked in a ditch and hiding under his car. So he started the warning to all the rest of us…”

  “Don’t use the salt,” Noah nodded. “So I guess they probably broke up after that.”

  I shook my head. “No, I think they dated a year or two. From what I heard, Kess dumped him. Howard started chain-smoking after a bad brush with a skunk ape and apparently, Kess can’t stand smoking.”

  I caught a glance of Noah looking like he wanted to ask more but then thought better of it. “Ok, so now what?”

  I didn’t know ‘now what’. I needed to hunt, but the source of my hunt intel was probably in the process of making himself breakfast in bed with a second day of only clear skies on the horizon. I turned the radio on, praying to hear some kind of report from Walter. Music, just music.

  “Bane?” Noah asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “What?” Noah spat. “You don’t have a plan?”

  I cut my eyes to him. “Noah, you’ve been literally right next to me the last few days. Except for when I’m in the can, do you think there was a moment I had time to form a plan without you?”

  Noah shook his head. “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “I just thought you’d always know what comes next.”

  I snorted. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  Noah fell back against his seat. “I know I should be relieved that we’re not about to stampede into more hell, but...this feels…bad…”

  I nodded. “I know it.”

  “And how many days do you have left before…” Noah began.

  Thankfully, my cell phone began its annoying ringing. Saved. For now at least. I snatched it up and flipped it open before Noah could finish his question.

  And immediately regretted it.

  “Hey,” Gabe said. “Where are you at?”

  I rolled my eyes. “States away from you, why?”

  “You don’t know where I am,” Gabe said. “So how can you be so certain that you’re states away?”

  “The pinball machine in the background,” I said. “Are you going to try to tell me that you’re not at Rover’s in Memphis?” Rover’s was the hunter bar on the east coast where I’d met Gabe, years ago. I was looking for information on a skin-walker and Gabe was looking for fun. He didn’t find it with me.

  Gabe sighed. “I need to tell Turk to get rid of that thing.”

  “And you were calling, because?” I said, trying to will the painful feeling in my gut to go away.

  “I still haven’t heard anything,” Gabe said. “I think it’s safe to say that my link is compost. I’m going up there to look around.”

  “To look for what?” I asked, feeling the knife-edge of my voice sharpen as annoyance turned my tone bitter.

  “I don’t know,” Gabe said. “Maybe something you missed.”

  “Knock yourself out, asshole,” I said, feeling the heat rising up my neck. “I mean we were just there and dug around and found nada. And of course, I’ve already told you that we found nothing useful.” Well, besides the symbol, but I wasn’t about to get into it with Gabe about that. He’d want to meet...and I didn’t think I could take that. “But sure,” I continued. “My experience is nothing compared to yours…”

  “Hang on…” Gabe started, but I wasn’t about to let him get his foot in the door.

  “No, go for it. I mean you are the ‘ultimate hunter’ or whatever. Meanwhile, I’ll be actually tracking them and hunting them down.” And I hung up. My pulse was racing, the blood pounding in my ears so loudly it took me a few moments to hear Noah’s laugh. I turned to look at him.

  “So what’s your plan to um, ‘track them and hunt them down’, hmmm?” Noah asked.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I assume that was Gabe?” Noah said, inching closer to me on the seat, leaning forward, utter glee on his face.

  “Bad dog,” I said. “Drop the squeaky toy.”

  “Not a chance,” Noah said. “So Gabe’s going back to the campground?” I nodded. “And he was dumb enough to tell you that’s what he’s doing, even after you told him there was nothing there?” Noah asked, leaning back. I turned to look at him. Noah had his hands behind his head and he was gazing out the windshield, with a broad smile on his lips. I rolled my eyes and looked back at the stop sign we’d been sitting at for the last few minutes.

  “So, where to now?” Noah asked.

  “Rosetta’s,” I said, mostly because I had no other ideas, and the thought of her Huckleberry Buckle and a place to regroup felt like the only plan right now.

  “K,” Noah said. “So, what you said to Gabe about tracking them and hunting them down?”

  My phone was ringing again. The anger I was on the verge of spewing at Noah, I redirected at the buzzing piece of plastic and I viciously flipped it open.

  “What?!” I barked.

  “Bane.” It was Stacks.

  “Hey,” I said, the anger deflating out of me. “What’s up?”

  “I found something,” Stacks said. “And it’s...I don’t even know what to think.” He was talking fast, his voice agitated and ragged. I recognized it as his ‘all-nighter’ voice.

  “Ok,” I said. “First, calm down and step away from the coffee pot.”

  “Ran out,” Stacks said. “Six hours ago. No, seven. Seven and a half…”

  “Shhhh,” I said to him. “Now, what did you find?”

  Stacks took a deep breath. “Remember when I hacked into the Johnson Meredith security cameras in St. Louis?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Well, I left the feeds up on my computer and so when I got home and opened my laptop, the tab was still open and I was about to do some reformatting on my hard drive…”

  “I’m pushing the fast-forward button,” I said. “What about the security feeds?”

  “Well, I noticed this option in the corner, to look at the archived footage.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “And, out of morbid curiosity, I guess, I decided to look at the footage from that night, when Sister Smile’s tribe came in.”