The Gathering, page 23
41
The voices followed him. Before, Beau only used to hear them occasionally. Now, they were with him constantly. Whispering in his ear. Even in his sleep. He got up, moved from room to room, but they refused to abate.
“Leave me alone,” he muttered, and they chuckled softly.
“We can’t. We’re part of you, old man.”
He shook his head. “I won’t listen to your devil tongues.”
Beau was not a fanciful man. He believed in right and wrong. Good and evil. But in reality, he had never been a regular churchgoer. He called himself a Christian, but he hadn’t worshipped enough. Since Patricia died, he didn’t regularly say grace, he drank a little too much, he had let his devotion falter.
Truth be told, he wasn’t fond of that new preacher. Something about her. Well, maybe it was just that she was a woman and in Beau’s opinion a woman had no place being a preacher. Maybe he needed to get over that and get back to church. Maybe now was as good a time as any for praying.
He knew he should have mentioned the Doc’s news to Jess. But he didn’t want to worry her. She had enough on her plate with the business and her boy and that useless husband of hers. Perhaps more selfishly, he didn’t want to see the pity in her eyes. The fear. He didn’t want her to look at him the way she had looked at her mother.
He walked downstairs to the kitchen. His throat felt scratchy and dry. Beau turned on the tap and filled a glass with water, gulping it back quickly. Maybe too quickly. He felt it swirl in his stomach and then belched. A little of the water came back up and he spat over the sink, hanging there for a moment. He felt light-headed and dizzy.
“You’re sick, old man—and you’re only going to get sicker as we get stronger.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
But even as he said it, Beau felt the fear. The fear of becoming like Patricia. His mind slipping through his fingers like sand. The mass taking over.
“Damn you.”
He turned and walked back up to the bedroom. A picture of him and Patricia on their wedding day stood on the table beside the bed. Next to it, a framed photograph of their children. On the chest, an older photograph—his parents and grandparents with Beau and his sister. It was a rare picture of his grandfather. He usually hated being photographed because of his burns.
When Beau was a child, he had been told his grandfather had been badly injured in a fire at the mine. It was only later, when his father’s tongue grew looser as death loomed closer, that he learned the truth.
Beau turned from the photograph and walked to the window. When Patricia was ill, he often used to stand here, the window wide open, freezing wind blasting his face, pretending he couldn’t hear her cries of distress from downstairs.
He wiped condensation off the glass with his sleeve and looked out. His heart stalled. Three figures stood outside. Two men and a younger adolescent boy. They gazed up at him, skin white as the snow, eyes glowing, long animal-skin coats billowing in the wind. Not possible, he thought. Dead. You’re all dead.
“Are we? Maybe we’ve been here all along. Waiting. Only now you can see us as well as hear us.”
Beau ducked back against the wall. His heart pounded and sweat crept from his hairline. Not real. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. He waited, breathing heavily, trying to calm himself. Then, slowly, he edged forward and peered around the curtains.
A face hovered outside the window. Beau screamed. The man stared in, amber eyes glowing, teeth bared in a smile, one hand pressed against the glass.
“No, no, no.”
Vampyrs couldn’t fly or float. It must be…
“In your mind, a hallucination?”
Beau moaned. Nausea overwhelmed him. He staggered across the hall and made it into the bathroom just in time to spew up a stream of water and bile. He hung over the toilet bowl and retched until his stomach ached.
After a while, he hit the flush and then, on unsteady legs, turned to the sink and splashed his face with water. He looked at himself in the mirror. White hair so thin he could see the pink of his scalp. Loose bags like deflated balloons beneath his eyes. His skin looked clammy and pale. Like he was coming down with something.
“What’s happening to me?” he croaked. “What in hell is happening to me?”
From somewhere inside his head, the darkness chuckled. And the voices whispered in his ear:
“You know.”
42
The power had come back on, and Mayflower had dressed and made them all coffee. She perched on a chair beside Dan, arms folded, a defiant look on her pale face.
“Okay,” Barbara said. “Why don’t you explain what you’re doing here, although you can spare me the gruesome details.”
The pair exchanged glances.
“And don’t try telling me it’s not how it looks, either,” Barbara added.
Dan sighed. “Okay, so Mayflower and me, we hook up here maybe once or twice a month and, well, we use one of the guest rooms.”
“Romantic.”
“It’s not supposed to be romantic,” Mayflower said. “It’s sex.”
Barbara raised an eyebrow. “And how does your wife feel about you using the rooms here?” she asked Dan.
He shifted uncomfortably. “I tell her I’m going hunting or night fishing.”
“She buys that?”
He glared at her. “To be honest, I don’t think Jess cares where I am or what I’m doing. Half the time she’s at that goddamn church with that crazy preacher, and when she is home, well, things between us have been sour for a long while now.”
“So why haven’t you left?”
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s Stephen,” Mayflower broke in. “Dan can’t just walk out. He’s a good father.”
Yeah, such a good father he was banging a girl not much older than his son.
“So, you arranged to meet here tonight?” Barbara continued.
Mayflower nodded. “I finished shift at ten thirty. Dad got home about midnight after locking up. I waited till him and Mom were settled and then sneaked back out. Dan texted me and I let him in around the side.”
Barbara nodded. “What time was this?”
“One thirty a.m.”
“When you arrived, everything was locked up?”
Mayflower nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“No sign of anyone else about?”
“Nope.”
“Seems like a heck of a lot of sneaking around.”
Mayflower gave a small shrug. “We don’t really have anywhere else to go, ’cept the woods or Dan’s car. And they’re both freezing this time of year.”
Again, the romance.
Barbara sipped her coffee. “You notice the power go off?”
“No.”
“But something disturbed you?”
“Yeah, I heard a noise downstairs. Banging, and someone shouting.”
“I guess that would have been me,” Barbara said with a thin smile. “And that’s when you came down and opened the freezer?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Barbara glanced at Dan. “And where were you, sir?”
“I was right behind her.”
“Funny. I thought you were trying to sneak out of the bar.”
He glared at her. “I was trying to protect Mayflower.”
“Really?”
Mayflower laid a hand on his arm. “We both agreed we’d keep this secret till Stephen turns sixteen.”
Dan gave a small nod but didn’t say anything.
“Then we’ll leave this shithole and set up someplace else, right?” Mayflower turned to Dan.
He managed a weak smile. “Sure.”
Barbara eyed him cynically. If she had a dime for every time a man had spun a young girl that hackneyed line, she sure as heck wouldn’t be freezing her ass off in Deadhart right now.
When the time is right. When the kids are grown. We’ll leave and make a new life.
Few ever did. And those that actually managed to grow a backbone and leave soon came crawling back. The grass was never greener. Young girls grew older, sex became sparser, and babies are harder work at fifty than thirty.
Barbara had thought that Mayflower was too smart to fall for any of that baloney, but perhaps the cynical, world-weary facade was just that.
“Look,” Dan said now. “You’ve asked your questions, Detective. We haven’t committed a crime. It’s after four thirty in the morning and I need to get home.”
For a moment, Barbara had a vindictive urge to make him stay. Or better still, to force him to come to the police department to make a statement and reveal his deception. But what good would that do? The likelihood was that Mayflower would be the one who got hurt while Dan remained in his “sour” marriage with Jess and a son who now saw his father for what he really was. And no child needed that. Sometimes, lies are the things that bind a family as much as love.
“Of course, sir—and thank you for your help. But I’d like your phone number in case I need to speak to you again.”
Dan got out his phone and Barbara put his number into hers. She smiled. “Well, I think we’re all done here. I’m sure you’ll be keen to get back to your wife and son. Being the good father you are.”
Dan looked as if he was about to retort, but then seemed to think better of it.
“I’ll let you out,” Mayflower said.
“It’s fine. I can do it myself.”
He turned and stalked off toward the door. He opened it a crack, peered through and then slunk out.
“I can see why you fell for him,” Barbara said. “A real Prince Charming.”
Mayflower gave her a look. “Slim pickings around here, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Can’t say I was looking,” Barbara said.
“You still need me, or can I go too?” Mayflower asked.
Barbara considered. “Actually, I’d like you to look at something.”
The girl sighed. “Fine.”
Barbara rose and walked back around the bar through the kitchen. “You ever store stuff in the freezer for other people, aside from dead bodies?”
“Sometimes we’ve stored the odd deer carcass for one of the hunters.”
“Nothing else?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Okay.” Barbara pulled open the freezer door and then paused. She glanced over her shoulder. “Not being funny, but you got something to prop this with?”
Mayflower walked back to the bar and came back with a heavy stool, which she used to wedge the door open.
“Shit!” she exclaimed as she took in the spilled bags, the blood and frosted organs. “What the fuck?”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Barbara said grimly.
She walked across the freezer and picked up one of the bags. Two frozen organs nestled inside. “You know what these are?”
Mayflower stared at her, wide-eyed. “Hearts, and I’m guessing they ain’t pig.”
“Nope. Looks to me like these are vampyr. And I’d say they’re fresh.”
She looked around the freezer. When she was here with Nicholls, her focus had been on Marcus’s body. She hadn’t really paid much attention to the rest of the room. Now she looked around more carefully.
Mayflower rubbed at her arms and shivered. “What are you looking for, anyway?”
“Not sure.” Barbara’s eyes narrowed. She walked toward one of the stainless-steel storage units. Metal containers were stacked on the shelves. She pulled the lid off one. It was half full of Saran-wrapped meat. The meat looked like deer. She examined a couple more and wondered if her gut instinct about this was right. She reached to the back. There were two bigger containers here, both with lids on. She used both hands to pull one out. It didn’t feel as heavy as the others, despite its size. She pried open the lid.
“Jesus Christ!”
She recoiled in revulsion, the container slipping from her fingers. It hit the floor with a clang and landed on its side.
Mayflower let out a scream. The contents of the container rolled across the floor, coming to rest at Barbara’s feet.
She looked down.
The decapitated vampyr head stared lifelessly back at her.
43
“We didn’t know what was in the containers. We was just doing the Doc a favor.”
Carly glared at Barbara, bony arms crossed over her chest.
Barbara met her gaze evenly. “So, these aren’t your containers?”
Carly glanced at her husband. “No.”
“And you didn’t think to ask why Doc Dalton wanted you to keep these containers in your freezer?”
“We thought it was something to do with his work.”
“And you never looked inside?”
“No.”
“What about the hearts? They were just bagged up on your shelves. You didn’t think that was unusual?”
“Thought it was for research or something.”
“Human hearts?”
“Vampyrs ain’t human,” her husband muttered.
Barbara glanced down at her notes. Hal.
“So, you did know they were vampyr hearts then, sir?”
“He ain’t saying that,” Carly snapped. “Look, we’ve told you all we know. And the Doc is dead, so I don’t see what difference it makes.”
Barbara let out a sigh. The four of them sat around a table in front of the bar. Barbara still hadn’t had a chance to change out of her pajama bottoms or brush her hair. After calling Carly, she had set about documenting the scene. She had taken photographs of the hearts and head and then replaced it in the container. It was male, late forties in appearance and, from the style of the hair and the piercings in the ears, not old enough to be antique. The second container held another head. Younger, female. Bleached-blonde hair shaved on one side. A girlfriend perhaps. Both had bad skin and teeth. Maybe the two had been outliers, living rough? Lone vampyrs were easier prey than those from established colonies. Barbara was pretty sure the victims weren’t local, either. They had a city look about them.
“Whether you were aware of what was in the containers or not,” Barbara continued, “possessing vampyr hearts or heads is a criminal offense.”
“Bullshit! You can’t blame us for something we didn’t know about.”
“Mom,” Mayflower said in a low tone.
“Don’t you ‘Mom’ me. You still ain’t explained what you’re doing here at five in the morning.”
“I told you, Mom. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I’d come in and get started early—do some cleaning, y’know.”
Carly looked dubious. Barbara broke in: “I’m afraid ignorance is no defense in the eyes of the law. Of course, if you have any more information that might help the investigation, ma’am, I’m sure I could take that into account?”
She smiled at Carly and Hal. Hal looked like he was about to speak, but Carly got in first: “We’ve told you everything.”
“Okay…well, in that case, I’m afraid this area is now a crime scene. No one in or out. That means the Grill doesn’t open until I’ve finished gathering evidence.”
“What? We need to run a business.”
“Not this morning, ma’am. Until further notice, the Grill is closed.”
Carly and Hal stared at her with undisguised hostility. Mayflower put a hand on her mom’s arm. “One morning isn’t the end of the world, right?”
Carly snatched her arm away. “You’re not the one paying the bills.” She shoved her chair back and stood. “C’mon, let’s leave the detective here to get on.”
Hal and Mayflower both stood. Carly continued to glare at Barbara: “I’d have thought you’d be more concerned with the dead fifteen-year-old in the freezer than those vampyr scum. If you ask me, you should be congratulating whoever killed those fuckers.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to take your feedback into consideration, ma’am.”
The trio turned to go. Barbara cleared her throat loudly. “Just one more thing.”
Carly turned.
“I’m going to need your keys,” Barbara said.
Carly shook her head but reluctantly took out a bundle of keys. She took two off and handed them to Barbara. Hal and Mayflower did the same.
“These all the keys?” Barbara queried.
“Yep,” Carly said.
Barbara wasn’t sure she believed her, but it would have to do. Unless she could find signs of a break-in, someone out there must have another set of keys. Either that, or they had somehow managed to hide in here after closing.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m done here.”
Carly responded with a snort and the trio let themselves out. At the door, Mayflower glanced back at Barbara and mouthed, “Thank you.”
Barbara just nodded. It wasn’t up to her to tell Mayflower’s parents about her secret rendezvous and, as far as she could see, it wasn’t relevant to the case. Although, right now, she wasn’t entirely sure what was relevant to the case anymore. Each new piece of information brought more questions.
There were only two things she felt sure of: Dr. Dalton’s death wasn’t a suicide. And he wasn’t working alone. Someone had wanted to get in here and remove the evidence. Someone who didn’t care if they murdered a cop in the process.
But was the same individual responsible for the murders of both Marcus and Dalton?
Or was there more than one killer in Deadhart?
This morning, he had told her. It would happen this morning. The girl needed to be ready. Without a watch or a clock, she had no real idea of time, but he had told her to count, as best she could, the minutes and hours.
Now, she heard voices outside the low basement window. She strained against the extent of the chain.
“So, you want me to leave these bricks and cement right here?”
