“I understand where you’re coming from, Ian. Believe me, I do. But I’m afraid there’s simply not enough time for us to build on it right now. I need that envelope. Please.”
“Thanks for understanding, but it’s still not happening.”
“Have it your way, then. No more games,” Brighton says. “Oren?”
He cocks his head towards me and another man walks out from behind my Jeep. Oren is short, almost comically so. Barely five feet tall if I’m right and proportionately skinny, which is to say thin as a pin. He has the woman’s blond curls, though his fly away from his head like dandelion seeds and hers flow straight down. Either they’re related, or Brighton hires all his people from the same catalog. He’s wrapped up in a brown leather coat two sizes too big for him, dark jeans tucked into police-issue boots.
All this I take in with my peripheral vision. My real focus is on the gun. It’s a vicious looking one, about three feet long with a matte black finish, a thick sideways magazine and a stubby barrel. I’ve never seen anything like it. Oren is holding it all wrong – it’s at his waist like he’s an uneducated street thug – but he looks like he’s more than familiar with it and the blankness in his eyes makes me feel like anything but comfortable.
“I hope you see the trouble I’ve went to tonight,” Brighton says. “It would have been a lot easier to just kill you and take the envelope. In the future I might even regret it, but right now I felt you deserved more. I hoped you’d be smart enough to see all the possible outcomes, namely Oren here cutting you in half with that odd little gun of his. So, if you don’t mind proving me right…” He holds his hand out one more time.
“With Blondie here standing right next to me?” It’s a desperate bluff and I know it, but it feels like there are no more straws to grasp at.
“Ah, yes. Autumn, are you okay?”
“Fine, Henry,” Blondie says. As if that’s his cue Oren nudges his aim from me to her and fires off a three-shot burst, the gunfire sounding like stuttering, chesty coughs.
I leap back reflexively, my Springfield leaping up like a retriever on point, but even as I do I see three elegant roses with luxuriant white petals drifting towards the ground to settle at Autumn’s feet.
Holy shit.
Transmogrification, changing something into something else, is heavy-duty magic. It takes years of study and practice before even the most skillful adept can change sugar into salt. Autumn here intercepted three bullets in flight, nullified their momentum and changed them into fully bloomed flowers. I look at Autumn in a whole new light. There’s definitely a lot more to her than meets the eye. A frightening lot more.
“Ever see The Untouchables?” Brighton asks. “Even if you didn’t, you’ve seen the shootout scene at Union Station. Amazing stuff. I was on the edge of my seat first time I saw it. Literally, perched there like a hawk. Two groups of hardened soldiers blasting away at each other, while all through the middle of it the innocents scramble madly out of the way. Let me tell you, Autumn here could walk through that storm and not wrinkle her dress. Ain’t that right, baby?”
“While eating ice cream,” she adds.
“So, now, Ian, for the last time. Give me that envelope.”
I’ve got nothing left to pull. Here, faced with a pedestrian threat like a gun, I’m as normal as anyone else. As vulnerable as anyone else. I’ve been reduced to a common victim in an everyday street mugging – either give up my wallet or die for it. I’m not willing to die for a piece of paper, even though I’m certain that a great number of people I know wouldn’t agree with my logic. Screw them, it’s my logic and my life.
I secure my gun in my belt, open my fingers and let the envelope fall to the street to settle in the gritty snow.
“Your turn,” I say to Autumn, holding out my now-empty hand. She smiles a little sadly, showing me her palm. The folded card is gone, replaced by a stemless white rose. She gives me a “what-can-you-do” shrug, daintily picks up the envelope with her thumb and forefinger and brings it over to Brighton.
“You want to know the funny thing?” Brighton asks. Without waiting for an answer he goes on. “The funny thing is that even with what you’ve done over the last day we’re still not really all that mad at you. Oh, I won’t lie and say we’re fine with how you single handedly torpedoed this whole operation, I’m just saying we’re not feeling vengeful or anything. This could have been so perfect, too. I mean, this was going to be the one I could tell my grandkids about, you know?” He chuckles to himself. “Oh, well. Tomorrow’s another day and all that. Truth is, I’m far angrier at Sota Gamagori.” He taps the envelope against his thigh. “Everything would have worked out perfectly if he’d just shown some insight and burned this after he read it like he was supposed to.”
“You’re the one who told him about the kiovore?”
“Not at all,” Brighton sounds like a college professor dragging a dim student through an exam review. “He already knew about that. We told him about the ley seal.”
“Okay, Henry,” I say. “I’m not pretending to understand what exactly the hell is going on here. Why did you sell him that kind of information? If he’d gotten his way…”
He laughs. “Oh, no, Ian. We sold nothing. That’s not the way we operate. He never asked us for anything because, just like you, he never even knew ‘we’ existed. You don’t buy anything from us. We give, freely.”
I am beyond bafflement. In order to truly understand anyone you have to understand their motives, and I can’t get a handle on Brighton’s. The information he’d shared could have meant countless deaths, in addition to permanently altering the physical and mystical layout of this entire region. It would have been disaster on a local scale and pandemic on a global one, and whatever drove them went beyond mere money.
“Who are you?” I ask, unable to think of anything else to say.
At an unseen signal Autumn and Oren turn and walk casually around my Jeep, disappearing into the falling snow. Henry Brighton gives me a final, avuncular nod before he follows them. As the darkness envelops him he calls back to me over his shoulder.
“We are Coronet.”
I stand there, watching the space they disappeared into, until a salvo of precipitation forces me to take shelter in the Jeep’s driver’s seat. The snow has given way to sleet, and the wind is driving it against my windows with a harsh, scattering whisper. It’s almost soothing. It reminds me of home.
I’m just starting to unknot my shoulder muscles when a sharp, rapping knock on the window sends me six inches into the air. Heart thudding, I see who’s there and roll down the window.
“Doctor Laveau. Is everything all right?”
My heart almost drags to a stop when I see his expression.
“What happened? Is Lisa all right?”
“Kimberly says she is still fine. Sleeping nice.” Despite the good news, his face is still solemn.
“Spill it, Doctor. What’s the matter?”
He lets the harsh precipitation bounce off his dark, weathered skin and answers without looking at me.
“He is dead.”
“Who? Hollett? What happened?”
“No, no. Not Hollett. The visitor. The kiovore. He just died.”
I let it sink in. “What happened?”
He shrugs. “The strain was too much. His heart, his body, couldn’t take it. It finally gives out.”
He’s still not looking at me. I reach out and grab his shoulder. “Doctor, what about the rest? I broke the curse. Every one of them who turned is going to change back. Will they be okay?”
He slowly shakes his head. “I do not think so. No. It is too much for the body to handle, the back changing. I am sorry, Ian. I know you tried.” He pats me on the arm, then heads back into his hospital.
When I become aware that the sleet has numbed my face I roll the window up. Then I sit in the darkness for a while.
Epilogue
Superstition Bay is healing. It’s a slow process, but at least it’s
underway.
It’s Christmas day, but the town is divided in its celebration. Some people are as stoic as Easter Island statues. Lights haven’t been hung, rooftops are unadorned. Christmas tree lots are still brimming with stock.
As if deliberately contrasting them, some Christmas parties have been raging for two full days already with no end in sight. Liquor stores can’t keep their shelves full. Neither can convenience stores. The longest running is in the remains of Parkman Gems. Once the inventory was cleared out the “basement” was filled with concrete. More than ten feet of it. It’ll be months before it’s fully set, but the seal is now totally inaccessible. Nobody can reach it again without enough construction to warrant a FEMA grant, but that doesn’t stop half the Grey in town from spilling booze on top of it.
The seal itself was not repaired. Even the Aegis didn’t have anyone who was comfortable enough with mystical engineering to tinker with it, lest they damage it even further and possibly turn Superstition Bay into another Krakatoa. Raw, wild magic is still leaking from the site like water through a cracked dam, a sobering but accurate analogy. Nobody, even the farseers, know what that could do to the town or its inhabitants, though they promise us that the dam is in no danger of sundering.
In total, fifty-nine people were infected by the kiovore curse. None of them survived the reversion process. They all died as monsters, starting with Celeste Reese. Though opinions differ as to when she became a monster. Thanks to the cabal of Grey in the SBPD, all of their bodies were hidden long enough for them to all receive proper, if somewhat hurried, burials. I’m sure the Aegis had a hand in that. It’s worth noting that the body of the prime kiovore vanished shortly after I let Samantha know where it was.
The town was world-famous for a few hours, for a couple of different reasons. The kiovore attacks were written off as mass hysteria resulting from a particularly toxic home-brewed batch of methamphetamines, with the valiant members of the SBPD cast as heroes who rode boldly forth to combat the evil that had infected the land. I understand there’s some kind of book deal being floated around, with Captain Bayle as ghostwriter. Maybe he’ll get rich enough to move out West.
The other reason behind Superstition Bay’s fleeting fame was the footage of Gault going full Wolfman on the kiovore. Viral doesn’t begin to describe how the videos surged through the web, recording millions of hits on every website that hosted it. Even the Aegis wasn’t able to suppress it, though they did get as many noted experts out there as they could, and all their long-winded diatribes featured the word “hoax” in one way or another. They also found a way to render the videos murky, unfocused and all but impossible to decipher. The people who saw it in its clear state remember, though. The town’s website got so many hits the counter couldn’t keep up. So-called “monster tours” have started cropping up, and three different syndicated paranormal investigation reality shows are booked to film episodes here within the month.
As far as I know, no town outside of Salem has ever had this kind of infamy in the Grey world, which makes the future very interesting and not a little bit worrisome. In a few weeks, most of the country’s population will find other things to obsess over. But the Grey’s focus isn’t always so easily shifted. Like how the discovery of a new dinosaur delights paleontologists both professional and amateur for years to come, what happened in Superstition Bay is going to be obsessed over by the supernatural world for a long time to come. And sometimes that kind of attention brings its own problems along with it.
The painted wooden sign next to the main road into Superstition Bay has always proclaimed the town’s name and population. Three days ago, someone painted an addendum underneath it in elegant white script. It now reads, “Welcome to Superstition Bay. Here there be Monsters.” The town has painted over the graffiti twice, and it’s bled back through both times.
Hollett and Lisa had a nice little tea party at my house the morning after the curse broke. Lisa actually likes the Aegis tea, which makes me question her taste buds even further. Now that he’s mended Hollett has decided to linger in town for a while. He says Superstition Bay suits him, at least for now. He’s put a bid in on a small ranch down by the water. I give it six months before he’s on the move again.
He’s the only Grey in town (since he lives here too, now, he gets the right to use the name) who tolerates my presence.
All the rest of them know what I tried to do. More of them are still pissed at me, either for their own reasons or someone else’s. I’ve gotten threats and warnings both written and electronic. None of them have had the balls to step up to my face, though.
A couple of them have made small gestures to try to mend the fences, but I’m very content to leave them broken. Yesterday I woke up to an immense homemade apple pie waiting for me on my porch. I took it out behind my house and left it for the weird denizens of the woods. It came flying out of a brush a minute later, splattering against the siding of my house.
Here there be monsters, indeed.
Devils, too.
Lisa convinced me not to track down whoever it was that threw the bottle that cracked her skull, saying it wasn’t in tune with the feeling of the season. I offered to wait until after New Year’s. She agreed that would be an acceptable compromise. I love her. Haven’t said it yet, though. That’s for after dinner tonight.
Right now, though, we’re in post-Christmas morning hangover mode. I’m sprawled on the couch, half comatose while my stomach works on a massive influx of chocolate-chip waffles, courtesy of the restaurant quality waffle iron Lisa gave me. Like I said, she’s the best. Right now she’s on the other end of the couch. She’s spent all morning playing with her new fitness band, setting up her parameters and customizing her exercise plans.
We got Jamie a new tablet, one of the ones with a detachable keyboard. I should have done that years ago. Now he can text or e-mail me. That should make life a little bit easier.
When she has her band set up to her specifications she fairly bounces off the couch and disappears into the bedroom. She comes back out a minute later wearing black tights and an Under Armor sweatshirt. “I’m going to go break this thing in,” she says, waggling the wrist with her new toy on it.
“Have fun.” She gives me a kiss and steps out, closing the door against the chill.
After she closes the door behind her, Jamie’s new tablet floats over to me. The collapsible stand folds out as the ghost sets it down on the table next to me. The word processing program is open.
What now?
I watch Lisa in the front yard. She stretches for a few moments, then sticks her ear buds in and sets off in a light jog.
“Now we go to work,” I tell Jamie.
Where do we start?
Lisa rounds a corner, disappearing from sight. Once she’s gone I move Jamie’s tablet closer so I can see what he does.
“They call themselves Coronet.”
The End
Look for your next visit to Superstition Bay:
Someone Else’s Vengeance
Coming soon. Here’s a preview…
One
“You going to put a stop to that?”
I don’t look to my left. I’ve already clocked what’s going on over there, and no, I’m not about to step in.
“They’re on their own,” I tell Lisa, putting a hand on the small of her back and guiding her away. She shrugs. She’s used to my recently acquired indifference to the Grey, the ever-growing slice of Superstition Bay’s population with either an inherent or learned affinity towards the magical, the mystical, the supernatural. Somewhere north of twenty thousand people (and non-people) live in this town, and by now almost a third of them are Grey. Since Christmas more and more of them are moving here every day. And none of them seem to care for me much.
My relationship with the Grey has been, well, Lisa has used the word “tempestuous” to describe it. It’s a good word, and it fits. For years, I acted as a kind of moderator for Grey problems, helping to keep them out
of trouble when I can, settling the problems when I couldn’t, and above all keeping their troubles away from the attention of the human residents. I’m uniquely qualified to do that, and I did it well. Until five months ago, when Lisa got hurt by the some of the Grey, the very people I was trying to protect.
I don’t protect them any longer. That’s why I could care less that John and Michael Houser are beating the hell out of each other on the other side of the beach from us.
They’re cousins, not brothers, but more than anything what they are right now is a spectacle. Even without magic, they’re tough to miss. Both in their middle twenties, six feet four, dark haired and swarthy, hard-muscled from more than half a decade working on an offshore oil rig. Their parents, sister witches whose family have been part of the Grey for four generations prior, also bequeathed to them an aptitude for offensive spellcasting and the lax morals to use them capriciously. More than once I’d corralled one or both of them when their personalities threatened to spill out into the open world.
It’s not my problem anymore.
Lisa shrugs, walking with me away from the developing fracas. Right now they’re just scrapping John Wayne style, thudding body blows in the sand, getting closer to the water’s edge.
Fortunately, the early June night is just crisp enough that, until now, Lisa and I have had the whole beach to ourselves, just like I’d hoped. Unfortunately, it’s Saturday and the boardwalk fifty yards off is sporting a fairly decent sized crowd of milling barhoppers, but as long as Saruman’s idiot cousins over there stick to throwing fists there’s a good chance their little fracas won’t be noticed. Most fistfights are over in half a minute, the moonlight is intermittent, and since it’s after ten o’clock the crowd is too immersed in liquor and distracted by their own narrow-focus lives to notice them. As long as they don’t try to measure whose magic wand is bigger, there won’t be any problem.
No More Devils: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 31
