by E A Comiskey
Nathaniel cocked his head as though he weighed the truth of her deduction and found it a reasonable conclusion. “I wouldn’t say the whole reason, but it’s certainly a large part.”
The slurping of the tea and the ugly cat’s soft purring composed a cozy melody. A bold little robin lighted on the windowsill and lent its whistle to the tune.
“We should rescue Stanley first,” Burke said. “He can help us.”
“Did he tell you how to do that? Or ask you to make him a priority?” Nathaniel asked.
“No, but…” Tears glistened in her eyes.
Richard’s mouth twisted down at the corners. Whatever she felt for Stan Kapcheck sure did seem like a thing to him. The thought made the tea and cookies roll unpleasantly in his stomach.
“I don’t think you have time to help Stanley first,” Nathaniel said.
Burke wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “We’ve got twenty-one days.”
“You’ve got seven days.” He reached for a second cookie and nibbled its edge. “Mmm. Peanut butter.”
“You’re wrong about the days. We’re certain because of my wife’s death. If the creature is active every twelfth twelfth moon cycle, it will still be hanging around for a good three weeks.”
“True,” he agreed. “It is active for the entire duration of the moon cycle—”
“But it can only be killed in the light of the full moon,” Burke finished his sentence.
Nathaniel leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “Forgive me, dear, if this is too personal, but I wonder, why are you here? You asked for the hunter’s knowledge, and you followed the path this far. You clearly care about saving Stanley, but you’re conflicted. Half of you is still struggling to believe the existence of what you’re fighting against.”
A single tear escaped the glistening pools in her eyes and rolled down her cheek. “Stanley gave me purpose. I was so lost until he came along. Now he’s gone, and everything that’s happened in the past few days seems like smoke and mirrors. If Stanley can get captured, what chance do we have? In some moments, I remember his faith in us and I’m strong. Then my own faith is gone like so much dust in the wind.”
Jeremiah lifted his backside into the air, stretched luxuriously, and padded over to Burke. He rubbed the tear away with the wild, silken fur on his head.
Richard was moved. The girl had spoken the words of his own heart. A lifetime of disbelief was not so easily overcome in a single week. He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “We’ll find him, kid. It’ll all be okay, just like he said.”
She gasped. “Grandpa!”
“What?” he replied, startled.
“Your ribs!”
He pulled his hand back and sat up straight in the chair. Not only did the movement cause no pain in his ribs, the old aches in his hips and knees were gone. He couldn’t remember being so comfortable.
Nathaniel laughed at their stunned silence. “I told you the salve would work. I might not be a hunter, but even a hermit in the woods is allowed to have a few good tricks, right?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Burke
She should have been sleeping. It was past midnight, and tomorrow would be another long day of driving, but here she was, sitting in an enormous, overstuffed armchair reading the hunter’s journal.
Nathaniel had been kind enough to offer them shelter for the night. When they’d protested about how little space he had for himself, he opened the door covered in unusual symbols and revealed a labyrinth of rooms, including, so far as she saw, several bedrooms, a library, at least four baths, and what appeared to be a bowling alley, though the lights were off inside that space so it was hard to tell for sure.
Her grandfather slept in the room across the hall, snoring so loudly that, even with both doors closed, she heard him. The sound soothed her. If he was snoring, he was alive.
After she’d studied the pages about skinwalkers until she’d memorized the words, she flipped backward, randomly stopping on page fifty-six.
The xochitl is an aspect of a human spirit that has broken away and learned to live independently of the flesh in which it originated. It should not be hunted indiscriminately. The nature of the spirit is dependent upon the nature of the human from whence it came.
“What does that even mean?” she asked the empty room, and she flipped forward to page sixty-two.
It is most important that one not sever the head of the Hydra, for it will be replaced by two more.
“Well everybody knows that,” she mumbled. She’d lived alone for a very long time. There were whole weeks of her life when, if she hadn’t talked to herself, she wouldn’t have talked at all.
Page seventy-eight was interesting.
A spirit possessing the strength to produce ectoplasm cannot be contained with a salt boundary as lesser spirits most often can. Rather, the only way to destroy such a spirit is to burn the bones of the spirit’s human body.
She sincerely hoped she wouldn’t be faced with the prospect of digging up a body any time soon.
The dybbuk is similar in most aspects to a low-level demon. However, it is derived from a tortured human soul, which gives it a drive to torture the souls of others. Under assault from the dybbuk, a person will experience flare ups of irrational rage and violence.
Burke slammed the book closed and tossed. “I’m not possessed,” she said. “I have a good reason to be angry. There’s nothing irrational about it. I’m a freakin’ rock star for how calm I stay.” She stood and started pacing again, but stopped when she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
It was true that she was a woman of a certain age, but she’d never looked better. She was strong and fit. Confidence straightened her spine. The finest salon in the Detroit Metro area had curled her hair.
“You can be the finest peach in the orchard, Burke Dakota. Some people just prefer apples.”
How many times had her mother said that to her over the years?
She remembered being twelve years old and thinking, “But wouldn’t it be nice, just for a day, to be an apple and know what it is to have those people like you, too?”
No doubt about it. The only demon who made her anger flare was the one she’d nurtured in her own heart all these years.
“Do all the good you can, for all the people you can,” she said to the woman in the mirror. “All the people, Burke. Even the ones who royally piss you off.”
In the mirror, the woman gazed back at her with a warrior’s eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Finn
Finn stood over the toilet, hacking, waiting to see if the overwhelming force of the coughing would make him vomit. All that came up was a wretched yellow glob that he spit into the bowl. He wiped his face with a wad of toilet paper and tried to catch his breath.
For a long time, smoking had been a social thing, something to do with his hands, in between drinks, when he was out with friends. Back then, time with friends kept him sane. The worlds inside his mind were so vivid and all-consuming, they often seemed more real than the physical plane on which he was forced to exist. Singing karaoke at Big Nose Kate’s was therapy.
Then his moderately successful books exploded into a cultural phenomenon. He knew it was true because Entertainment Weekly said so. His characters were on HBO now, in movies, referenced by other fictional characters in sitcoms, like that made-up world was an alternate universe where everyone knew each other.
His fans wanted more. His publisher wanted more. Everyone wanted more, and no doubt about it, there was more for him to give. If he wrote twenty-four hours a day, he’d never have enough time to get all of his thoughts onto paper.
He couldn’t manage twenty-four, but he started pushing it from his usual six or eight to a routine twelve. Twelve sometimes became sixteen and, even then, sleep eluded him because the stories banged on the bars of the prison of his mind.
A year ago? Two years? Five? He’d found himself sitting in front of the computer
doing nothing. His fingers moved restlessly over the keys, never pressing hard enough to send a signal to the computer. The cacophony in his head was louder than ever. So loud that he couldn’t hear it through the haze of exhaustion that had settled around him. Sitting there with his fidgety hands made him crazy. A pack of cigarettes lay on the shelf. He’d dug it out of his pocket and tossed it there so long ago that it was covered in a thin film of dust. Just for something to do, he lit one and drew the foul, stale smoke into his lungs.
Five minutes later, with the filter clamped between his lips, his story started pouring out of him.
He went through at least a pack a day now, even though they no longer worked their magic.
He still ran, convinced the exercise helped work the toxic garbage from his lungs. The only time he really noticed how it affected his health was in the morning. In the mornings, he had a smoker’s cough.
This morning, he thought he was going to die hacking up a lung.
Seemed like the moment had passed though. Apparently, today wasn’t the day, even if the reflection in the mirror looked twenty years older than it should and had two days’ growth of beard where there should have been just a shadow. “You’re old and pathetic, O’Doyle.”
Sara didn’t think so.
The corner of his mouth turned up at the thought of Sara. She’d reawakened a passion in him he forgot he ever had. No wonder he looked half dead. The girl was screwing him to death.
What a way to go.
“Finn! You’re awake!”
Speak of the Devil. He met her eyes in the mirror. “I have to make some calls today. I promised my editor I’d have the first chapter to him by Tuesday morning so I’m already twenty-four hours late, and after blowing off the con—”
Her laughter cut him short.
“What?”
“Thirty-six hours, Finny baby.” She danced around in a manic little display that brought back the feelings of discomfort he’d had when he first met her.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s Thursday afternoon, sleepyhead. Guess that little…uh…run wore you out.”
He turned to face her straight on with a frown. “You mean Wednesday afternoon. I slept past noon.”
“Nope, Thursday.”
Her grin struck him as predatory. He stepped around her, into the bedroom, not wanting to be closed in the tiny space of the bathroom with her any longer.
His phone was charging on the bedside table. He picked it up. It was Thursday.
“I slept for thirty-six hours?”
Sara’s warm hands slid around his waist and held him tight. “Yeah, but you’re awake now. Let’s do something fantastic.”
He pulled away from her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. The perfect lip turned out and he hated himself for responding to it with a powerful surge of desire. “You don’t want to spend time with me anymore?”
“I just need a little space. I—” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her to go, and he hated that, hated that he was too weak to speak his mind to a little girl half his age and half his size. “I need to take a shower.”
The grin returned. “Sounds nice. I’ll join you.”
“No.” He held up his hands. “Please, I just need a little space,” he said again. “You know how it is. Writers and their solitude. I’ll be out in a little bit and then we can go have lunch, okay?” Even as he said the words, he regretted them. The thought of food made his stomach turn. After a long run and an even longer roll in the sack, followed by an entire day and a half of sleep, he ought to be on the verge of starvation, but the reality was, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to eat at all.
Sara backed off and let him shower.
He took his time, luxuriating in the hot spray. By the time he got out, the bathroom was misty and the mirror was covered by a film of condensation. He wiped it away and reached for his shaving cream, but the movement caused the light to reflect against the silver whiskers in his beard that hadn’t been there the last time he looked. “Geez,” he whispered. “You really are old and pathetic, O’Doyle.”
Fifteen minutes later, he found Sara on the couch, reading one of his novels. “Stephen King is better,” he said.
“He’s not my type,” she said, patting the cushion next to her. He sat down and the soft padding accepted him like it was giving him a hug.
“Ready for lunch?” she asked, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer through the thick haze of sleep settling on him. From very far away, he was aware that she was covering him with a heavy quilt and kissing his clean-shaven cheek. “That’s okay, Finn. You rest, and I’ll stay right by your side.”
Or maybe she didn’t say that, at all. Maybe he just dreamed it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Richard
The SUV gobbled up the miles between New Mexico and Arizona too quickly. Thoughts and images floated through Richard’s mind, flotsam and jetsam on a churning sea. One single certainty rose above them all again and again until he no longer had the strength of will to ignore it, try as he may. It had occurred to him thirty minutes into the drive, something he hadn’t given much thought to in the days since Burke showed up in Spearfish. Now, he couldn’t let it go.
He finally blurted the words into the silence of the car, “You need to call your mother.”
He had expected resistance, anger, annoyance, even maybe a little fear. That he was treading on thin ice with her was apparent. He was completely unprepared for Burke’s quiet, “I know.”
They sailed past a bright blue sign with a starburst of yellow and red surrounding a gold star. Welcome to Arizona. The slow, subtle climb into the foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains began.
“She’s going to be furious with both of us,” Burke said.
Richard sighed. “Yeah. I know.”
“Do you love her, Grandpa?”
Her question astonished him. “Of course, I love her. Give anything for that kid.”
Burke flashed a pretty grin at him. “She’s a senior citizen, too, you know.”
“She’ll always be my kid.”
His eyes searched the landscape. Familiar, vague, subtle panic nipped at his soul. The sky in this part of the country was too big, the land too rough and alien. He’d always had the thought that most of what lived here was trying to hurt people—from the prickly cactus to the venomous animals, to the rough-hewn, leather-skinned people descended from lawless frontiersmen. Darn hippies tried to make the state into something arty and modern. Peace and love. Ha! Retirees with more dollars than sense came along and built enormous green golf courses in this barren desert, sucking the aquifers dry with no care beyond their own pleasurable final years. They thought this country of eternal sunshine was a paradise. They didn’t see the hard truth that had existed in the land for a million years before they came along, that would remain for a million after they were gone. This land was a place of death.
He shivered. Better to return to the conversation with Burke than follow that train of thought too far down the track.
“I was a bad father, but I always loved her.”
“You weren’t so bad,” she said.
“I wasn’t so good, either. Your father—he did a fine job. That always stuck in my craw, you know. I grew up in a generation where we were taught…” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Her grip was tight on the steering wheel, her eyes straight ahead. “Well, we were stupid. I’ve been foolish far more often than I’ve been wise. I reckon I have a few more lessons I need to learn. More than a few mistakes to make up for.” He swallowed the lump in his throat. “But I never stopped loving her.”
“She is a little hysterical, though.”
He snorted, his own laughter catching him by surprise. “Like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs! Never met a woman so quick to get bent outta shape.”
Her cheeks lifted in a responding smile. “It would be the easiest thing in the world to put off calling her a l
ittle longer.”
“It would. That’s true.”
“But what’s easy isn’t always what’s best.”
“Almost never.”
“Okay then.” She leaned up onto one hip and dug a phone from the pocket of her pants. “Call Mom,” she said.
Richard jumped. “Now? You’re calling her right this second? I thought maybe—”
“Hello?” his daughter’s voice emanated clear and loud from the tiny speaker on the phone. “Burke?”
“Hey, Mom. Sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
“Oh, thank God! Are you okay? Is your grandfather with you? Where are you? Last I knew, he’d been in the hospital and—”
“It’s okay, Mom. Grandpa’s right here. I’m on speakerphone. He can hear you.”
“Dad?” her voice broke with emotion. “Oh, Dad. Thank God! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, just fine. Calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down! In the history of the world, no one has ever calmed down because someone ordered them to. You disappear in the middle of the night without so much as the courtesy of a note. Where in the world have you been? What’s going on with you?”
“I—” Panicked, he looked at Burke.
She cut in, speaking in the same quick, firm tones his Barbara used to use when she would accept no further nonsense. “Grandpa was helping Mr. Kapcheck. You know, his friend from Everest?”
His daughter’s hysterics would not be calmed so easily. “Helping him do what? Why couldn’t you tell anyone where you were going, Dad?”
“He has a friend who’s dying, Mom. A best friend. Like a brother. In Arizona. He doesn’t have any time to waste and he was afraid to drive alone. He came to Grandpa in the middle of the night because Grandpa had told him he used to live there, and they took off right away because there was no time to waste.”
“But they were in the hospital!”
Richard could practically hear the gears turning inside her head, trying to piece everything together into a coherent picture.