Skunk Man Swamp

by P. D. Workman

  Corvin gasped audibly. “What?”

  “I thought that you must know, even if no one else did. You had no idea?”

  “Well… no, Reg. He had references. Of course I had no idea…”

  “Well, I wouldn’t recommend you refer him to anyone else. Actually, it doesn’t matter whether you do or not because he isn’t going to be running any more tours.”

  “Oh. I see.” Corvin’s voice was low. “We’d better not say anything more about it until we see each other. We’ll get there as soon as we can.”

  “Thanks. See you then.”

  Reg ended the call and handed it back to the boy. “Thank you again. So much. I don’t know what’s wrong with people these days!”

  He nodded gravely and slid his phone into his pants pocket. “You were kidnapped by a swamp goblin?”

  “Well… yes. But please don’t tell anyone else. It’s kind of… a secret.”

  “Like when my brother went out with a witch.”

  “Uh… yes, that’s right.”

  He nodded and wandered down an aisle and stopped to look at Pokemon trading cards. Reg wondered whether his brother had gone out with an actual witch. Maybe , someone had called her that or something that sounded similar.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Corvin and Damon were not as close as Reg had hoped. Corvin hadn’t given her any estimate, so she had no idea how long to expect. When twenty minutes had passed, then forty, and then an hour, she was very impatient for their arrival.

  She didn’t want to be the target of any extra attention, especially from any creatures or malevolent human beings. She wondered if Etienne and Bruce had already returned to their respective homes.

  She sat on the boardwalk outside the store, watching the people going by, wishing she could transport Corvin and Damon there by sheer force of will, similar to when she had called Calliopia and brought her and Ruan tumbling out of thin air into her reality. But she didn’t suppose that they would appreciate it very much. They would lose any equipment they were not holding. She assumed they were in a boat flitting over the top of the water to reach her, and had no idea whether calling them magically would bring the boat with them or leave it speeding along unmanned without them. Besides which, there were a lot of people around who would probably not be too happy to have a couple of men tumbling in from the ether. In Reg’s experience, people tended to be irritable and even outright angry when they saw things that could not be explained by their own reality. They would think it was some kind of trick. And anything they couldn’t explain was bound to be classified as dangerous.

  Calling them there without knowing how they would all be affected was definitely reckless. Better to just wait for them to arrive.

  A woman who came out of the store approached Reg and handed her a water bottle.

  “Oh… thank you!” Reg cracked the bottle open without demurring about how she didn’t need it and the woman didn’t really have to do that. She was very hot and thirsty after traipsing through the swamp for so long.

  The woman smiled pleasantly and walked away with her friends. Reg heard her murmuring something about homeless people being everywhere as they walked away.

  Even after washing up at Etienne’s house, Reg still looked homeless? She looked down at her arms and her clothing. Her hands were a little dirty, but other than that, she didn’t look so bad. Scratches, but no mud and grime. But there were some holes torn in her pants, and the cuffs and knees were in a shameful state. Wrestling with swamp goblins and crawling through the swamp would do that. Reg sighed.

  She had nearly given up on Corvin and Damon finding her. They might have gotten lost despite the GPS coordinates, or been eaten by something in the swamp. Reg might have given them the wrong numbers, inverting some of them as she sometimes did, and they could be miles away looking for her.

  “Reg!” Damon shouted, hurrying toward her.

  Reg got to her feet. Damon grabbed her and held her close in an embrace. Reg went rigid at the unexpected contact. She put her hands on Damon’s shoulders to push him back.

  “I’m fine. It’s okay.”

  “We didn’t know what had happened to you. I felt so bad. I was the one who asked you to come along, and then you ended up sleepwalking into the river or something. I thought you were a goner. We should have had someone keep watch…”

  “I told you something was wrong with Tybalt.”

  “Tybalt?” Damon shook his head. “He never came back. We figured he must have gotten a better offer from someone else. We had to find someone else to drive us. We were looking for you...”

  Corvin joined them. He put his hand on Reg’s shoulder. Not so invasive as Damon’s hug, but his touch always gave her an electric shock. She pulled away from him too.

  “Yes. Tybalt. I told Corvin on the phone. He was a swamp goblin.”

  Damon took a step back. “A swamp goblin?”

  “You know, the kind who kidnaps people and takes them back to his lair to kill and eat them. That’s who you hired to guide us.”

  “I didn’t know… he was Corvin’s recommendation.”

  Corvin held up his hands. “I was told he was the best there was. No one knows the swamp better.”

  “Oh, he knew the swamp all right. But that doesn’t make him the best guide.”

  “No.” Corvin rubbed his whiskered chin and looked down. “No, of course not.”

  “A swamp goblin took you back to his lair?” Damon asked in a tone of disbelief. “What happened? How did you get away?”

  “It helped that he wanted to visit with me before he… you know… did away with me. I think… sort of like a cat that likes to play with its prey…” She shuddered, remembering him taking her into his trophy room with its shelves lined with skulls. “He wanted to scare me first.”

  “I’m amazed that you were able to get away.” Corvin shook his head. “Swamp goblins aren’t known for… that.”

  “I used fire to burn the ropes he tied me up with. And… I was sort of angry and knocked him down with a fireball. I ran away, but he still caught up with me. I couldn’t figure out where to go. It was on an island… no way off except through the water.”

  She recalled the fight and wasn’t sure how much more she should tell them. That she had communicated with the panther? Run into the skunk man in person? And ridden on a skin-walker? She didn’t want any of them to be put in danger because Reg revealed too much about her story.

  “Anyway… I got away. But it took me a long time to find anyone who could help. And… I need a bath and fresh clothes, and about ten meals. I want a hot bath. In a hotel.”

  “Of course,” Corvin agreed.

  Damon had opened his mouth with an objection on his face, but they both stared him down. Reg was going to a hotel. She was going to have a hot bath. And then he would be lucky if she didn’t go home.

  Corvin suggested a hotel in Miami. Once Reg had had a soak in the tub and had on fresh, clean-smelling clothing, she invited Corvin and Damon to her room to talk about the case. She wanted to go home. But she also didn’t want to leave without the wizard. After being lost and attacked in the swamp herself, she couldn’t just abandon someone else to his fate. Who knew what kind of creatures he might have faced or have yet to confront? He might be held captive, like Reg had been, by something that wanted to scare him before killing him. Or something that was feeding off of his powers or forcing him to perform some kind of slave labor.

  “I want you to tell me all about Wilson,” she told Damon flatly, thinking about all of the points that others had brought up. “Everything you know about him. Everything you’ve been holding back.”

  “I haven’t been holding anything back,” Damon objected.

  “You know more than you say you do. Did you think that if you told me everything, I wouldn’t agree to come?”

  She saw the guilty look cross his face and knew that she’d hit the nail on the head. There was something about the case that she wouldn’t like.

/>   Corvin studied Damon’s face, and Reg wondered if he saw the same thing that she had.

  “Damon. Tell me or I’m going home. I’m not going to tell you what I have already found out, and there is no way you are going to find him before the Spring Games.”

  “You can’t go home—”

  “I almost got killed! I can go home if I like.”

  “But you don’t have any means of transportation.”

  “Really? You’re going to hold back on the car? Fine. I’ll get a bus. I’ll Uber. I’ll do whatever I have to. And you can wander around the park asking all the questions you like. No one is going to tell you anything.”

  Damon’s eyes went up to the ceiling. He scratched the back of his neck.

  “I… only know a couple of things that I haven’t told you.”

  “Spill the beans. I don’t know how you expect me to find someone when you don’t even give me all the information.”

  “But you’re a psychic. You should be able to find him without knowing all of the details.”

  “That’s not the way it works.”

  He was still reluctant.

  “I’m counting to five, and then I’m out of here.” Reg didn’t slow down to count the numbers out, like she was counting seconds. She fired them off rapidly like gunshots, forcing Damon to make his choice and act. “One, two, three, four—”

  “Okay. Okay, don’t go. Just listen.”

  She waited.

  “Jeffrey Wilson… has been missing for fifty years.”

  There was dead silence in the room. Reg stared at Damon in disbelief.

  “Fifty. Years.”

  Damon nodded. His face getting pink.

  “You didn’t think it was important to tell me that part.”

  “Like you said… I figured if I told you that, you wouldn’t come. A lot of people think he’s dead.”

  “Well… yeah! He walked into the Everglades and didn’t come out for fifty years? What do you think that means?”

  “There have been sightings. And there is a reward. I thought… you’re good at finding things. You have strong powers. Maybe you can find him.”

  Reg ignored the part about her being good at finding things. She hadn’t been good at finding things since Calliopia’s cursed blade had cut her and Corvin had stolen her powers. Things hadn’t been the same after he had returned them. And while Reg’s powers had been growing in other areas, she hadn’t been strong in finding random objects.

  “These sightings… it could be his ghost. If he didn’t come home after a year, then you can bet that he’s dead. He got eaten by a crocodile or a boa constrictor or a swamp goblin.”

  “The Everglades hide a lot of things. Just because he hasn’t turned up, that doesn’t mean he isn’t here. There are lots of places to hide. The sheer amount of space, the dense vegetation…”

  “Why would he want to hide?”

  “I didn’t mean that he was intentionally hiding. Just that… it would be easy for someone to get lost. Or to hide someone.”

  “You think someone has held him captive for fifty years?”

  Damon looked down. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”

  “Why would someone hold him captive for fifty years?”

  “Maybe to use his powers. I don’t know. Just speculation.”

  “This is ridiculous. You don’t know if he’s still here or still alive.”

  “You thought that you felt him in the first area we stopped. Where we ate.”

  “Yeah, but he could have been buried under the floor.”

  “I don’t think he’s dead. A lot of people don’t believe that he is.”

  “A lot of people don’t believe Elvis is dead.”

  He frowned at her. “He’s not.”

  “Don’t you dare tell me some story of how Elvis was actually an alien and has been living in Florida all along.”

  “Okay.”

  Reg stared at him, but Damon didn’t take back what he had said or offer any other explanation. Reg closed her eyes to shut out his face and Corvin’s curious presence.

  She tried to remember everything she could about the vision she had seen before accepting Damon’s proposal. She had seen the wizard, so he had to be alive, didn’t he? She remembered the way that he moved, the way he was dressed, his wizened face. It was harder, since she didn’t have her crystal ball or Starlight to amplify the signal. But she was closer to him; she should be able to have a better picture. She rubbed her temples. She had bathed, but she still hadn’t eaten. It had been a long time since breakfast, and she had only had a bottle of water during the interval.

  A picture started to form in her head. But this time, there was something different about the wizard. Was he shorter? Heavier? He shouldn’t have changed that much in the time since she had seen him last. What was different?

  “Damon.”

  It was Corvin’s voice. But he hadn’t spoken aloud; the voice was in her head. Reg opened her eyes and looked at Corvin in irritation. She didn’t respond to him audibly. But the vision was gone, and she was sure she would not be able to get it back. She was too fatigued. It would be at least a day before she could bring it back again.

  “Damon is a visionary.” Corvin was still in her head. She didn’t push him out. “He is the one giving you that picture.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Reg’s jaw dropped and she looked at Damon. He didn’t know what Corvin had told her and didn’t realize that he’d been caught out.

  “What?” he asked in confusion. “What did you see?”

  “You know exactly what I saw.”

  “Why? Because it was the same as before?”

  “No, because you’re the one that put it there.”

  The flush that had previously risen to Damon’s face drained away. He looked at Reg, glanced over at Corvin, and then looked back at Reg again.

  “I… uh… why would you think that?”

  “It was different this time,” Reg said. “It should have been the same, but he looked different.”

  “You might just be remembering him differently,” Damon bluffed. “It’s been a while, and our memories aren’t perfect.”

  “Yours isn’t,” Reg snapped, “or you wouldn’t be feeding me a different picture this time!”

  Reg got up from the hotel couch and paced across the room. “I can’t believe you would do this. You hold back what you know and then you feed me a false vision? That’s… unconscionable.” She couldn’t believe that she was calling someone else out on his moral standards. Usually, she was the one trying to con everyone else. But that didn’t excuse Damon’s behavior toward her. “And you’re shooting yourself in the foot.”

  Damon’s brows twisted, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you even know what he looks like?”

  “Now? No.”

  She remembered Tybalt asking if she had a picture of Wilson and being surprised that Damon hadn’t shown her one. It was no wonder. In the beginning, he had told or—or at least implied—that Wilson’s disappearance was recent. Damon wouldn’t be able to show her a fifty-year-old picture without tipping his hand.

  “Do you have anything to show what he looks like? You’ve contaminated my mind now with your stupid visions of how you think he might look. And you can’t even remember what you showed me from one time to the next.”

  Reg paced, trying to keep her fury under control. Not only had he lied to her and misled her, but she had made it clear before that he wasn’t to put visions in her head unless he had permission. And he’d gone and done it again, pretending that she’d had a real psychic vision of the real Jeffrey Wilson, when it was just a made-up picture.

  That was why Starlight had clawed her to end the vision and why he had attacked Damon. Because he knew where the vision was coming from, that it wasn’t Reg herself.

  Damon dug into his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a snapshot to show Reg.

  She’d been right about the fact that he would have
given away the con if he’d shown her that photo. It was an old black and white photo. Wilson was an attractive man who looked to be in his prime, unlike the wrinkled wizard he had shown her in his vision. But Damon had done a poor job of aging him; the wizard in his vision didn’t look anything like the man in the picture. He would have been better off replicating the photo in the vision and trying to explain the rapid aging later. At least then, she would have been looking for the right man instead of chasing the vision of a man who didn’t exist.

  “Do you even know how old he’d look now, if he is still alive?” she demanded. “I mean, isn’t one of the things about practitioners of magic that they don’t age as quickly as normal humans?”

  Reg had learned there was no point in judging a witch’s or warlock’s age by their appearance. Someone like Sarah, who appeared to be in her sixties, might claim to be centuries old.

  “Well, no,” Damon admitted. “But I figured he would have aged some. Especially if he’s been lost or held captive here. The emotional stress can age a magical practitioner more than years.”

  “I can’t believe you would feed me false information and expect me to be able to find him.”

  “I really wanted your help. It was the best way I could think of to get it. I figured that once we were here, we would talk to some of the people who had seen him, and you would be able to use them and their clues to track him down…”

  “And that’s where you were taking me. To where he disappeared fifty years ago, or the people who thought they had seen him?”

  “Well, to where he had disappeared from first, and then… I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find the people who had seen him or not…”

  “Why not?”

  “Well… people who are vacationing, they don’t stay around here, but I thought I might be able to find something out from the locals.”

  “So you don’t have anyone here that you know has seen him.”

  “No, but people must have. If he’s been here for fifty years, then it shouldn’t be hard to find someone who knows him.”