by Vic Kerry
“What do you mean?” Johnston looked like a deflating balloon.
“I’m getting out. This was more of an inconvenience than anything else. I’m on sabbatical so it’s not like I had anything better to do,” Ashe said.
“My partner will make sure you get your stuff back and all the appropriate papers are signed,” Semmes said.
He got up from the table and opened the door. Johnston and Ashe walked out. Semmes went back to the table and returned the pictures to their envelope. Something was going on, and he didn’t know if it was really about Ashe or not, but it was something strange. He decided that the warehouse out near Birdville needed another visit.
Chapter Twelve
Ashe walked into his house to find Cybil asleep on the couch. She had an afghan pulled over her, but despite her small stature, it still didn’t cover her all the way. He smiled when he saw her. The levity in his mood changed as he closed the door behind him and darkness fell across her. What if she was the next target? He wished that he hadn’t gotten her involved in things, but he didn’t know how he could have stopped it. Everything that started happening to him started without him knowing it.
Smalls stepped out of his bedroom. “Don’t worry, I’ve been here the whole time,” he whispered. “I’ve just been doing some research on your computer. I hope that’s okay.”
“I guess it’s too late if it hadn’t been,” Ashe said. “What’s up?”
“Come in here so we don’t wake her.”
Ashe walked into his bedroom with Smalls. He sat on the edge of his bed and let the priest use his office chair. A mosaic of pixels shifted on the screen. Marianne had put that screen saver on the computer. Ashe had never cared for it but hadn’t removed it yet. He supposed he might just leave it as a tribute to her.
Smalls moved the mouse. A sinister-looking picture appeared on the screen. It was a painting of impish-looking monsters poking people with a variety of different sharp instruments. Other characters that looked like priests stood around the periphery. A flaming brazier took up the center on the painting. A man crucified upside down dangled above the flames.
“What kind of stuff have you been looking at?” Ashe asked.
“Satanic stuff, mostly. I’ve been trying to contact a colleague of mine who specializes in all things evil.”
“Is he a parapsychologist too?”
“No, he’s just a normal priest, but the Vatican uses him to investigate things like possession and events believed to be perpetrated by real Satanists, not just a bunch of yahoos thinking that they’re worshipping the Devil.”
“Is that his website?” Ashe asked.
“These are some of the images he has there. This painting was made by someone who accused the Inquisition of being started by the Devil. Note the priests standing around not stopping the demons. Of course there is also Christ being crucified upside down over the flames of Hell.”
“So what have you found out?” Ashe asked.
“We might have a real case on our hands.” Smalls twisted around in the chair and looked at him. “I’ve not encountered a real religious happening in many years.”
“What was the last thing you encountered?”
“Technically, it’s the only real phenomenon that I’ve encountered. It was a case of stigmata in a Guatemalan girl living in south Texas.”
“Never anything like this?”
“A few cases of supposed Satanism back in the early 1990s. It was just a bunch of headbangers riding the coattails of the Devil-worshiping craze from the ’80s. They killed a few pets. One of them was trampled trying to rape a horse.”
“Rape a horse?”
“He read in some fake spell book that having sex with a horse would raise Satan. It had something to do with the Jersey Devil. The problem was he was too stoned to notice that he was having relations with a stallion.”
“No resurrections though?”
“None.” Smalls looked at him. Ashe felt like the priest was reading his mind. “What do you know, and why are you back so soon?”
“Semmes had to arrest me, but he knew I couldn’t have taken part in some of the grave robbing or whatever you want to call it. He had to let me go because you and Cybil were my alibi for last night.”
“They thought you killed your students?” Smalls asked.
“Possibly. They also tried to accuse me of murdering a doctor in the Providence Hospital morgue, and stealing the body of Eddy Bertram, one of my dead students. Dean Allred was my alibi in that situation.”
“Are you saying it happened again? Another corpse walked out of the morgue here in Mobile? Was the stranger with it?”
“It looked like it. The stranger also killed the pathologist.”
Ashe looked at the priest. Smalls’ face drooped as worry started to play across it. He shook his head and rubbed his chin.
“This is bad, Ashe. I think something very bad is happening.”
“Like what?” Cybil stepped into the bedroom.
“I don’t know,” Smalls said, “but it’s more than just some stalker breaking into your apartment and possible necrophilia.”
“How long have you been listening?” Ashe asked.
“Since you got home.” She walked over and sat beside him. They clasped hands. “Are we in serious danger?”
“Probably,” Ashe said. “Semmes actually brought me in to warn me without giving away any sensitive police information.”
“Does he think it’s Satanists?” Cybil asked.
“He doesn’t know what to think, except that we might be in danger.” Ashe looked at Smalls. “You’re probably not safe either.”
“That will be between me and the Lord I suppose,” he said. “I am going to leave now. There are a few things I need to research in-depth.”
Smalls didn’t wait for them to say another word. He stood and walked out of the bedroom. The front door opened and closed. Cybil squeezed Ashe’s hand tighter. He felt her trembling. It wasn’t fair for her to have been dragged into things.
“Maybe you should leave town for a little while until we figure out what’s going on,” he said.
“Where would I go?”
“To your parents’ house,” Ashe suggested.
“That’ll be the day. All they’d talk about is how I’m too old to still be in college. They’ve been on about that for years now.”
“You’re just what, like twenty-two?” Ashe asked.
“You’ve drank with me and screwed me twice, and you don’t know how old I am,” she said.
Ashe couldn’t tell if she was angry or joking. He didn’t know what to say so he banked on silence. She raised an eyebrow.
“I just figured you were that age because you’re a senior in college,” he said.
“Twenty-seven. I’m a senior because I quit when I was nineteen and twenty-one. Then I changed majors at twenty-two and twenty-three.”
Ashe let out a sigh. “I feel relieved. I started to feel like that dirty old man in Lolita.”
“Humbert Humbert,” she replied. “One of those majors was literature, and you’re not a dirty old man. But you are a douche bag.”
“So I guess you’re staying in town,” he said.
“I guess I’m staying here,” she said. “If someone is out to get us, I don’t want to drag any of my friends into it.”
“That makes sense.” Ashe was happy. Cybil made the place feel less like quicksand. “I’m sorry you got dragged into it.”
“I don’t know how I did. All we did was go to a parade. How did you get in the whole mess?”
“I don’t know.”
Ashe started to rack his brain again. He figured that somewhere locked up in there he might find the missing puzzle piece to answer that question. Nothing came up. They kept holding hands. He rubbed her thumb with his. She put her head on his shou
lder.
“I’m a little bit hungry,” she said.
He looked at his watch. It was well past eight p.m. He hadn’t eaten all day, but didn’t seem any the worse for it. “I don’t have a lot in the kitchen. I haven’t been shopping in a while.”
“I’m sure I can find something to fix, and after that maybe we can take another shower.”
Ashe looked at her. She wasn’t joking although she smiled. “Really?”
“Sex is my coping mechanism. It really helps relieve stress. Right now I’m under a lot of it.”
“We’ll see.”
Ashe felt guilty because his feelings for Marianne were still so raw. The guilt also stemmed from the fact that he didn’t know if he was expressing his feelings for Marianne with Cybil or if he was having real feelings for her. He’d always felt a little bit attracted to her. It didn’t matter. He would do it anyway. She’d gotten dragged into the whole mess, and fooling around was the least he could do to make this situation a little more tolerable.
Chapter Thirteen
Semmes parked in front of the warehouse he’d been at the night before. The gate was still closed tight, and now a padlocked chain secured the gate closed. He watched the place for an hour before making his move. After no one came in or out of the place, he got out of his car. His 9mm rubbed the small of his back as it sat in its clamshell holster. He opened the trunk of his car and took out a pair of bolt cutters.
The street was well lit by street lamps. Their hum was the only noise except for the faint sound of work going on inside the place. Semmes put the padlock’s arm into the jaws of the bolt cutters. With a little effort and a good twist, the metal snapped in two. He took the lock out of the links of the chain. The gate slid open with ease. The chain dragged through the fence’s links, filling the air with its metallic sound. Semmes kept looking at the warehouse and then down the street both ways. His eyes never stopped moving until he’d opened the gate enough to slip inside. He propped his bolt cutters against the fence and pulled his pistol from the holster.
Semmes walked straight across the parking lot to the door of the warehouse. The knob twisted, and he opened it enough to peek inside. The door led into an office area. All the lights in the room were off, but enough spilled in from the adjacent room that he could see the clutter around. He stepped inside, closing the door carefully behind him. Noise came from the other room. Hammering and grunting kept step with each other. An occasional buzz of an electric saw drowned out the rest. Semmes slipped across the room to a desk that stood against the far wall. It was covered with papers, but the light at that end of the room was much dimmer. He shuffled a few of the top sheets. They were pink carbon copy receipts from hardware stores. He could only make out the stationery logo. The inventory lists were handwritten, and the scarce light made the lettering difficult to read. He riffled through more papers. Some he could read better than others. There was a computer printout from a Mardi Gras supply store. Another was for costumes. Nothing seemed incriminating, or worth breaking in for.
Semmes opened the middle draw of the desk. The light was enough for him to see several printouts from the Mobile Press-Register. He took one and leaned into better light. The headline read: Psychology Professor at Alabama Tech has Scientific Law Named for Him. A picture was beside the article. He didn’t recognize the man in the picture, but the caption identified him as Erik Rogers. Ashe had told him that he worked with a professor named Rogers.
He put that article back into the drawer and pulled out the next. It was a much larger write-up. The printout was folded in the middle. Two Alabama Tech Professors Record First Emotion. This time the large photo was of Rogers and Ashe. They both held small devices in their hands. Something about this bit of newspaper felt important to Semmes. He folded it up and stuck it into his pocket. The next bit of paper he brought out was Marianne’s obituary.
The noise in the adjacent room stopped. Semmes felt eyes watching him. He turned to the door, still holding his gun and the obituary. A woman stood behind him. The shadows obscured her face.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m Detective Semmes of the Mobile Police.”
“I know who you are. I asked why you are here.”
“Official police business.” He squinted trying to get a better look at the woman. “We have reason to believe this organization might be related to a missing person from Birmingham.”
“Is that correct?” the woman asked. Her voice and speech seemed artificial in some way.
She flipped the light on. It blinded him, and he turned to the side to regain his vision. When he looked up, he almost lost his breath. The woman in the doorway was Marianne.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I have already asked that question to you,” she said.
“I’ve been trying to find you, Marianne. Ashe is very worried. How did they mistake you for dead?”
“I am not dead,” she said, “and I do not know this Marianne. My name is Ursula. Do you have a warrant, Detective Semmes?”
“Now that I’ve found you here, I don’t need one.”
Semmes eased toward the exit. He’d dealt with crazy people before. They could be unpredictable and stronger than normal. The last thing he needed was for her to attack him or cause any sort of ruckus. He needed to get back to his car and call for backup.
“I do not know what you are talking about. I have always been here.”
“No, you haven’t. You’re name is Marianne Lenard. You were Ashley Shrove’s fiancée, and about a week ago, you walked out of the morgue at University Hospital.”
Marianne or whatever she called herself looked at him with amber eyes. Nothing seemed to look back. It was almost like having a staring contest with a doll. Crazy people would look at someone like that sometimes. Semmes remembered reading something about a psychological disorder where people forgot their identities and made up new ones. He wondered if this had happened to Marianne.
“My name is Ursula van Beckum, and we cannot allow you to leave.”
“Try and stop me.”
The door at Semmes’ back pushed inward. It knocked him off balance. He stumbled forward, looking behind him. Eddy Bertram, the dead college student who walked out of Providence Hospital’s morgue, came through the door. Gaining his footing, he stood and put his back to the wall so that Bertram was to one side and Marianne to the other. Now another woman joined the group. It was Carol Heinz. None of them looked normal. They all stared at him with amber, doll eyes.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but if any one of you tries to do anything I’ll shoot,” Semmes said.
In all his years on the force, this was the first time he knew he’d have to shoot his way out of the situation. His mouth was dry, and his throat started to clamp shut. They laughed, and Bertram advanced on him. Not thinking twice, and running on almost total adrenaline, Semmes aimed his 9mm and squeezed the trigger. Bertram jerked back as the bullet went into his chest, but he kept coming toward Semmes. Blood poured down the student’s body. It spurted out with force. Some of it hit Semmes in the face.
He shot again and again. More wounds opened up in Bertram, but it didn’t stop him. Semmes dropped his pistol as the student grabbed him around the neck with both hands. Fingers pressed deep into his throat. His windpipe started to crush inward. The pain was like nothing he’d felt before.
Black spots began to dance around in Semmes’ vision. Thoughts came quick and jumbled to his mind. He guessed he was having that life-before-your-eyes flashback. That was the last thought he formed before he felt his spine crushing into his windpipe, and then snapping.
Chapter Fourteen
Cybil tiptoed into the kitchen, carrying two plastic bags in each hand. Fitful sleep roused her early. She decided to fix breakfast for Ashe as a surprise, but knew there was nothing in the house. She sneaked out, borrowing his car, and drove to t
he local grocery store just a block away.
She turned the small television in the kitchen on as she started the meal. Bacon crackled in the pan. A bit of the hot grease popped up on her. She rubbed her hand and added eggs to the pan and scrambled them. The weather came on. She looked at it to see the extended forecast while mixing the Bisquick batter to make pancakes. The weather report was nothing too different for that time of the year. There would be heavy fog several mornings with temperatures in the sixties for highs.
Commotion came from the living room. Cybil poured the batter onto a griddle pan, flipped the bacon and moved the eggs around to keep them from burning. Ashe walked into the room. His hair stood on end.
“What smells so good?” he asked, stretching and scratching.
“Breakfast.”
“What’s wrong with some Cap’n Crunch and OJ?”
“Nothing, but I woke up way too early and wanted to do something special.”
Ashe walked to the coffee maker. He took the carafe from the warmer and poured the old coffee into the sink. “It smells like bacon.”
“It is bacon, eggs and pancakes,” Cybil said. “OJ if you want to drink it or apple juice, milk, or if you’re making it, coffee.”
“I am making it.” He emptied out the filter tray and put a fresh one in it. Two scoops of coffee went into the filter. He poured the water into the reservoir and replaced the carafe. “Hope you like plain old Maxwell House.”
“I drink tea at breakfast, Lady Grey,” Cybil said.
“I don’t have that,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve heard of it.”
“She was Earl Grey’s wife, and you didn’t have any. I went to the store and got the other things you didn’t have like bacon, eggs, Bisquick.”
“Apple juice,” Ashe added.
Cybil started taking up the bacon and eggs. She plated them and flipped the pancakes. The television came back from a car commercial. Ashe poured himself some of the coffee that hadn’t finished brewing yet. A drop hit the warmer. The smell of burnt coffee overpowered that of breakfast.
