Our Lady Chaos, page 13
part #5 of Bloodletter Series
His gaze stopped on a fresh listing and his heart skipped a beat. He clicked on the link and the site opened. “Society for Extrasensory, Metaphysical, and Paranormal Research” blazed in large letters across the top of the page. He scanned the menu—they indeed had public forums, and his mouse pointer hovered over the link. But there was something interesting about the page itself, so he right-clicked to bring up the source code. One look told him the code was generated—delivered by a server-side process when he clicked the link.
Pretty sophisticated for a fly-by-night paranormal website, he thought. Most used pre-built pages and plugins, plus cheap software ran the forums, but not the SEMPRe site.
Mason leaned back in his chair and tilted his head. Where would be a perfect place to hide? he asked himself. I’m hiding in plain sight. Granted I have help from LaBouche and friends. I need not pay bills or go to work. The town of Oneka Falls shelters me from outside eyes.
He didn’t know why his thoughts had taken that turn, but they had, and Red had taught him to listen to his own intuitions. After a moment of staring at the screen, Mason got busy.
10
Tom Walton shook his head. “I can’t sit here while Janet and the kids are at risk.”
Toby held up his hands to stop him. “Tom, we’ve put people on the ground in Minnesota and in California. They are watching out for your family while we get everything arranged.”
“People?” asked Tom.
“Scott Lewis, himself, flew to Minnesota to take command. He’ll call us as soon as he’s spoken to Janet. He still has his NYSP credentials. She will trust that, right?”
Tom tilted his head to the side and then brought it back upright. “Yeah. But—”
“You’ve met Scott. You know what he’s about, what he’s lost to the demons. He’d die before he lets anything happen to your wife, kids, or grandkids.”
“Yeah, but if he does, so do they. Right?”
Shannon leaned forward and patted Tom’s fist. “There’s nothing you can do, Tom. Even if there was, we can’t get you there before Scott gets them under cover.”
Tom squeezed his eyes shut. “Demons,” he scoffed. “Have I lost my mind?”
“No, Tom, you haven’t,” said Mike. “We knew they would take an interest in you, eventually. Benny’s been watching over you.”
Benny nodded. “Your family, too.”
“I’ve never seen you in Genosgwa.” Even to himself, Tom sounded surly.
“I haven’t been back there since the day we met.”
“Benny doesn’t need to go somewhere in person to keep watch.”
“Right, right. ESP,” said Tom, a crease between his eyebrows.
“Yes,” said Toby. “Exactly.”
Shannon reached her hand out, and Tom took it. “Tom, you’ve witnessed what I can do. Right?”
Tom twitched a shoulder up and down. “I’ve watched you concentrate, but I don’t know what happens.” He dropped his gaze to the table in front of them.
“Tom, look at me,” she said.
He lifted his head and gasped.
Shannon let her illusion fade. “What did you see?”
“The…” He shook his head. “I saw a woman…a dead woman with black, sagging skin.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry for that shock, but I needed you to understand what I do. I can put any image I want in your mind; I can make you believe that I look however I choose. I can do that for myself, for you, for anything I please.”
“Who…”
“That was a class of demons Toby calls ‘undead.’ Brigitta, the woman who haunted Greg at Lake Genosgwa, is an undead demon.”
“The Lady in the Lake is real?”
“Yes, but she’s no more limited to Lake Genosgwa than you are,” said Benny. “She goes all over the place. She can teleport.”
Tom shook his head. “All these years… I believed Stephen Canton was insane. The things he talked about—”
“Yes,” said Toby. “Tom, I’ve been hunting these monsters for years now. I’ve dispatched almost seventy of them—sent them back to Hell, or so they say. Their tricks don’t work on me.”
“Shannon does what they do, doesn’t she?”
“We don’t think so. Our experiences in Oneka Falls—and Greg’s in Genosgwa—awakened something within us,” said Benny. “Each gift is different, but we can develop each one. Enhance it.”
Tom turned to Mike. “Your gift?”
Mike shook his head. “I didn’t get snatched the way these three did. I didn’t get tortured, chased, whatever triggers the change. No gifts for me.”
“Yet,” said Benny, then laughed.
“Yet?” asked Tom.
“An old joke between us,” said Mike. “At the start of it all Benny pretended he could give me ‘superpowers,’ but try as he might, he can’t do it.”
“Yet,” said Benny again.
Mike chuckled.
“Then you truly can get in my head?” asked Tom.
Benny’s expression grew solemn. “Yes, Tom. At first, that’s all I could do well, and I had to be close to do it.” He grinned crookedly. “But as I said, we can improve our talents.”
“What else can you do? I mean, how has your gift developed?”
“Well, for one thing, Benny can read the demons now. From afar.” Shannon glanced at her lover and smiled.
“He’s also getting a knack for predicting the stock market,” said Toby.
“I think that’s reading a kind of gestalt deal. The group-mind of all the investors and bigwigs out there in la-la land,” said Benny. He turned his attention back to Tom. “You understand? I was watching out for you, but not in person. I was watching out for you by keeping psychic tabs on Genosgwa.”
“Watching for demons?”
Benny shrugged.
“You can see them?”
“No, but I can feel their nature. Their thoughts are…” He shivered.
Tom’s face turned red. “Then you’ve all been sitting here, doing nothing while…while demons stalk New York? Sitting here, living like kings!”
“You don’t realize the scale of it, Tom,” said Mike. “And we’re not relaxing here doing nothing. Not at all.”
“Then—” Tom closed his mouth as Toby’s mobile rang.
“Hello? Good. Let me hand the phone to Tom Walton. Repeat for him what you told me.” Toby extended his arm, his phone set to speaker.
“Hello, Tom. This is Scott Lewis. You remember me?”
“Yes,” said Tom.
“I’ve got a few people here who want to say hello.” There was a pause and a noise like sandpaper being dragged across the phone’s microphone.
“Tom? Tom, is that you?”
Tom sagged back in his seat and released a long-winded sigh of relief. “Yes, Janet, it’s me.”
11
LaBouche drew a deep breath in through the slits that served as his nostrils and held it while he counted to ten in his head. Rage coursed through him, but he didn’t know why. It’s not as if I didn’t realize this big purple idiot wasn’t a genius. He glanced at Nicole and found her malachite gaze. She flashed him a grin and a wink, and something inside him relaxed. He chuckled, and Dan Delo flinched, which made LaBouche laugh all the harder. “So, let me get this straight. You went to the old fucker’s house and got him to bug out. Then you followed him by air, but a little bird scared you off?”
“No! The hawk didn’t scare me away, it distracted me. But it wasn’t a bird anyway, it was the tricksy bitch, and she did it on purpose!” Dan fidgeted at the foot of the overlarge bed, his gaze dancing around the room—anywhere but at LaBouche.
“Of course she did, you giant Fruit of the Loom reject!” snapped LaBouche.
“Fruit of the Loom?” muttered Delo, but after one look into LaBouche’s crocodile eyes, he slapped his lips together—wisely—and returned to examining the walls.
“They set you up, Dan,” said Nicole. “That’s why Walton drove around in circles, to give them time to get the trickster into position.”
LaBouche smiled at Dan, but it was a smile tinged with anger. “So, once again, you allowed a key person to disappear, but at least this time you learned something.”
“Learned something?”
“Yes,” said Nicole. “This afternoon’s debacle tells us that wherever they are, it takes them less than an hour to get to Allegany.”
“But, how…” For a moment, Dan’s azure eyes glowed brighter. “Oh!”
“I’m glad you finally understand,” said LaBouche. “Now, get out.”
Chapter 5
1977
1
January 1977
Dennis scowled at the school from a block away. The last thing he wanted to do was attend class with the ugly purple and black shiner his dad had given him, but it was colder than a witch’s tit that Monday morning, and he didn’t want to freeze all day, either.
He slowed to a halt, standing in a slushy pool of dirty, salty water that had gathered at the edge of the road. The plow had created a baby snowbank beside the road as Father Winter had given them a miserly amount of snow to play with that year. His mom said it was because of the cold, but that made no sense to Dennis.
Pulling off his right glove, he shoved his hand into his front pocket and pulled out the pack of cigarettes he considered just compensation for his eye.
He’d been compiling an accounting of slights, of black eyes, of bruised ribs, ever since Halloween. Ever since he’d learned how much power rested within him, waiting for a chance to come out and dance. The bill his old man had already amassed was a long one. When he called that bill due, his father would pay for each and every item on his list.
Thinking about that day calmed him, took a bit of the shame and disgrace about his black eye away. He lit a cigarette and stood staring at the school. Should go, he thought. I don’t want to fail, again. Then again, an unforeseen side effect of murdering Jasper and leaving Ari a vegetable whom everyone assumed had murdered Jasper was that the teachers cut him slack. A lot of slack.
He hadn’t had a single detention, not one suspension, not even a note to his mom since Halloween week. His lips spread into a lopsided grin. Should’ve killed someone earlier. He chortled, releasing a lungful of smoke, and turned away from the school.
All he had to do was find a warm place to spend the day. Going home was out of the question; his father was out of work again. The hideout was off-limits, and his allotment of friends had dwindled to zero. He cackled again.
Maybe he could locate an empty house to break into, and if he didn’t, well, he’d been cold before.
He took the long way around the shitburg’s pitiful little downtown area. The cops didn’t share his teachers’ feelings about cutting him slack. That fucktard Greshin always looked at him through squinted up eyes as if he was a motherfucking Kreskin and knew everything there was to know about Dennis Cratchkin. Fuck that guy.
He walked down the middle of Union, looking left and right for a suitable house. He never heard the car until it pulled up behind him. With a sinking feeling, he turned, expecting to see a cop car.
Instead, an old pickup truck idled in the street. The driver was the biggest man Dennis had ever seen. He sported a cue-ball hairstyle that brought bikers to Dennis’s mind. The giant tilted his head and watched Dennis.
He lifted a hand in a way he hoped the giant man would take for an apology and turned toward the sidewalk.
“C’mere, kid.”
Dennis looked over his shoulder. The man had his arm out the driver’s side window, beckoning. The stranger danger bullshit Greshin put them through every year flashed through his mind, but he sneered at the idea. He reversed direction and approached the truck. “Yeah?”
“You’re Cratchkin, right?” The burly man seemed to wear the rig rather than ride inside it. “The one whose friend murdered your other buddy with a hammer?” Incongruously, the guy smiled as he asked the question.
Dennis nodded, more than a little unsure whether or not he should bolt.
The giant waved his hand as if he knew Dennis’ thoughts. “Name’s Red Bortha, Cratchkin. There. Now, we know each other, and you can stop thinking about that bullshit Greshin filled your head with at the end of school last year. Besides, boys ain’t my thing.” Bortha shivered. “Colder than a witch’s tit out there, kid. Want to climb in here in the heat?”
Dennis stood for a moment, staring up at the big man.
Bortha shrugged and made to as if to roll up his window.
“Wait,” said Dennis.
Red stopped and gave Dennis his full attention, waiting.
“Why do you want me to get in?”
“I like what I hear about you, kid. You seem to have your shit together.”
“And?”
Bortha laughed, and his laugh matched his appearance—large and loud. “Listen up, Cratchkin. I understand you, see? Like calls to like. I can help you, teach you.” He glanced around, and seeing no one, leaned farther out the window. “You got lucky last Halloween,” he stage-whispered. “You think your plan was perfect, but there were ninety-five thousand things that could’ve gone wrong, and you might’ve ended up in juvie until you hit eighteen and they transferred you to Attica.” He withdrew back into the cab. “That would be a waste.” He turned his gaze to the front. “Get in, kid.”
Dennis hesitated only a moment before trotting around the truck and climbing inside. Finally, he thought. Someone who knows something I want to learn.
2
March 1977
Sean pulled back against the tide of students rushing out the school’s doors. He’d spotted Dennis Cratchkin loitering by the bus ramp and didn’t want to risk running into him. That kind of thinking had kept him free of bruises and worse the whole school year so far, and he didn’t want to sully his record.
“Get a move on, Walker,” said Ivan Parra—who had the distinction of being the only Hispanic kid in Oneka Falls Elementary. Ivan was tall, even among the boys his own age, and he towered over Sean.
“I forgot something,” Sean murmured.
“Then move out the way. I don’t want to miss my bus.”
Sean shrugged and danced to the side, pressing himself against the announcement board no one ever read. Ivan gave him a funny look, but then he was gone, swept on by the tide of nine- and ten-year-olds rushing to get to the busses and home.
As the deluge of students slowed, Sean stepped away from the bulletin board and glanced out. Dennis stood over a third-grader, glaring down at him and holding out his hand. The skin on the boy’s elbows looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to them, and tears ran down his pudgy cheeks in torrents. Dennis said something, and the third-grader ducked his head, digging through his pack. He pulled out a little change purse decorated with beads—no doubt made at summer camp the year before—and Dennis cackled as he snatched it out of the kid’s grip. He shook the coin purse and waved it around as though doing a girly dance. The kid on the ground slumped and buried his face in his hands.
Karl always said he should stand up to bullies, but Sean didn’t think a big man like Karl Munnur had ever had to stand up to a bully half as tall again as he was, who outweighed him by thirty percent of his own body weight, and who was older and more experienced. He doubted Karl ever had to stand up to anyone. He doubted the world contained anyone stupid enough to pick on Karl.
Sean watched, frozen with indecision. Dennis was distracted, focused on his latest victim. Sean might sneak out and loop behind the building without Dennis noticing him. He dithered, shifting his weight from foot to foot and back again. On the other hand, Dennis might see him and come on the run. The bully might think they had unfinished business—their last encounter around the rear of the school had ended with Sean kicking him in the balls, after all.
Outside, Dennis ripped the coin purse open, not even bothering to catch the cascade of coins that rained down. He only wanted to destroy the kid’s coin purse.
It angered Sean, but what could he do? Someone should help the kid. Somebody should tell Dennis to leave him alone.
No one would. No kid, at least.
Twelve-years-old and still in the fourth grade, Dennis might as well have been an ogre. As big and brutish as he was, with an ugly personality to go along with it, he had the run of the school, and for some reason, the teachers were letting him get away with murder that year. They sometimes stopped him bullying someone, but it ended there. He never had detentions or got paddled or anything. Not since Halloween.
Dennis turned the purse inside out and said something to kid. When the kid didn’t respond, Dennis laughed and ripped the purse apart, throwing the torn leather halves in the kid’s lap. He dusted his hands as if he’d just done a good work and lifted his head.
His eyes met Sean’s for a moment, and Sean expected the worst, but Dennis only raised a hand for a short wave and smiled. Then he shifted his gaze away and sprinted after another hapless victim.
Sean turned, sure a teacher stood behind him, and that was who Dennis had smiled and waved at, but the hall was empty.
3
March 1977
“If you want to evoke terror, kid, randomness is the key,” said Red.
“Randomness? What the hell does that even mean?”
Red’s smile twitched on and off like a faulty neon sign. “Randomness means you don’t do the same thing every time. You have to be unpredictable.”
Dennis thought about it for a moment, lips pursed, brow furrowed. “Unpredictable?”
“Sure. If you always pick on the third-graders, the fourth-graders will see, and they might fear you a little, but they’ll recognize they are safe from your attentions for that day. But, if you choose a kid at random and go ape-shit on him, no one will know who’s next. Randomness.”
Dennis grinned and bobbed his head. “I get it! Eenie-meenie-minie-moe.”
“What?” asked Red, his face scrunching in confusion.
“Never mind. Picking kids by chance.”
“Oh. Yes. But it’s more than just the choice of the victim. That is…if you want to cause real fear.”
