Sons of Darkness

by Gail Z. Martin

  “I thought you might want a look at him before I finish taking out the trash,” Jason said.

  “What are you going to do with the bodies?” Brent asked.

  “There’s a crematory at the far corner of the property,” Jason replied. “I’ve already done most of the work for them, but we’ll put in what’s left and fire it up. No fuss, no muss—no awkward evidence.”

  Travis stepped closer to the growling creature. While it looked to be barely five feet tall, its sinewy body and the talons at the end of its fingers and toes suggested that it would put up a tough fight hand-to-hand. “Where did they come from?” he asked, turning to Jason.

  “Not sure. Lyle said he’s had some problems with vandalism lately, and he thought there were wild dogs or some kind of digging animal. They didn’t actually dig anyone up, but Lyle thinks that’s because he’s been staying around, keeping watch, and he started to turn on the security lights and leave them on all night.”

  Jason leaned back against the wall, but he also kept his gaze on the ghoul. “There’s woods bordering the cemetery so they might have been hiding in there, but these sure as fuck aren’t natural. Lyle and I got a glimpse of them, and so we thought we’d lure them in here, lock the doors, and call you.”

  “But obviously you switched up the plan.” Travis looked down the hallway at the blackened bodies.

  “It wasn’t hard to lure them inside with some spoiled meat,” Jason recounted, wrinkling his nose in revulsion. “But once they were inside, they attacked. Lyle shot a couple, but they were coming at us, fast. So I did what I do,” he added with a shrug. “Lyle knows. He just hadn’t seen me fire it up on quite that scale before.”

  “How do you think this fits in with the rest of the pattern?” Brent kept his gun trained on the ghoul as he took a step forward for a better look. The monster hissed at him, and Brent cursed at it in response.

  “General emotional turmoil,” Travis replied. “Having their loved ones’ remains dug up and strewn across the cemetery would upset a lot of people. Can’t blame them. I don’t think it’s about having the ghouls attack the living. All they have to do is stir up grief.”

  “You think there’s something more behind this?” Jason looked from Travis to Brent.

  Travis nodded. “Yeah, we’re not sure just what, but I think we’re getting close. Since it didn’t feed here, it might not try again—maybe it will go somewhere else where there isn’t someone like you who can easily contain it.”

  “I’ve got this hot-hands ‘gift,’ might as well use it for something,” Jason mumbled. He’d always made it clear to Travis that while he accepted the reality of his abilities and the need to train himself in its use, it was not something he embraced or considered to be a “superpower.”

  “I think your talents saved this town a whole heap of trouble,” Travis replied. “You did good.”

  “You need anything else from him, or can I toast the fucker?”

  “Give me a second, and let me see what I can read.” Travis widened his stance and squared his shoulders. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Brent bring his gun up, ready to fire.

  Travis took a deep breath and cleared his mind, trying to avoid thinking about the smell of charred meat and the underlying stench of rot. He forced away images of the blackened bodies in the hallway and the grimacing, snarling beast in shackles, and tried to broaden his senses, looking at and beyond the creature to the energies that surrounded it.

  Ghosts. So many ghosts. They crowded in from all sides, alarmed at the assault on their sanctuary, frightened and confused. Travis sent consolation to them, doing his best to soothe and reassure. He urged them to move on, and said a very abbreviated version of the absolution and blessing, hurrying them on their way. Those that chose to remain gradually faded out, like guests in a motel who had come into the hallway after a disturbance and then returned to bed.

  From the burned ghouls, Travis sensed nothing. Whatever animated them was not the ghost of anything remotely human; rather, the energy felt tainted and twisted, like a polluted river. Hell-maggots infested the ghouls to Travis’s enhanced sight, worming their way into the bodies and undulating beneath the gray skin. Fire and salt would cleanse sufficiently.

  “They might be controlled, but they aren’t possessed by anything worse than the hell-maggots,” Travis reported. “Give me a chance to say an exorcism, and Last Rites, then you can go ahead and burn them, then salt the building. I hope we can take care of whatever’s behind all this very soon, but until then, I’m afraid you and Lyle are going to need to keep up your patrols.”

  “Short of running an electric fence the whole way around the place, I kinda figured you were going to say so,” Jason replied. “We can do that. Just let me know when you’ve got whatever you’re doing done. I could use the extra sleep.”

  “You need help shoveling up what’s left?” Travis asked.

  Jason shook his head. “Nah. Lyle said he’d help. Between the two of us, we can handle it. Thanks for coming. I’ll let you know if I see anything else.”

  Travis said the exorcism and final absolution, and then he and Brent headed down the wide marble stairs. Behind them, they heard the whoosh of flame, a piercing howl that was abruptly cut short, and then silence.

  Neither man said much as they drove away from the cemetery. Travis thought about Jason’s dangerous and unpredictable gift and decided that glimpsing the future and talking to dead people seemed almost sedate by comparison. Brent kept his thoughts to himself, staring out the passenger window, fingers drumming on his thighs to suggest that he was mulling something over, not zoned out staring at the countryside.

  “Holy shit.” Travis slowed the Crown Vic as tail lights flared in front of him. Traffic on the two-lane state highway moved at a crawl, and up in the distance, Travis could see at least three sets of strobing police lights, as well as ambulances and fire trucks.

  “I wonder what happened?” Brent leaned forward and turned on the radio. “News on the nines,” he said with a grin.

  They had barely moved more than a few car lengths when the local news update came on. “Police and emergency crews are on the site of an accident involving a minivan and a dump truck,” the announcer said. “Traffic is being re-routed, and motorists are advised to avoid the area for the next several hours.” He gave the route number and suggested alternatives. “We don’t yet know the names of the passengers involved or the severity of injuries, but witnesses have reported seeing at least three ambulances, and we have on-the-scene footage of the van bursting into flames on our website.”

  Brent flicked off the radio. “Think it’s related?”

  “Seems like too much of a coincidence, although accidents did happen before the genius loci got fired up,” Travis argued with himself over whether to poke around in town. The chance to learn something that might help them stop whatever was behind the blast zone was too tempting to pass up.

  “I know how they’re going to re-route us,” Travis said as a uniformed cop directed them to make a U-turn and go back the way they came. “We can go to the diner in town and see what the locals are saying. There might be a reason the people in the crash were singled out.”

  “I hate this,” Brent said, fists tightening in his lap. “I feel like whatever this energy or entity is, it’s taunting us, and while we try to play catch-up, more people keep dying.”

  Travis turned off the road and wound their way into downtown Bellefonte. On the way, they passed several of the white and green Preston Energy trucks that seemed to be everywhere these days, thanks to the legislature opening up central PA for natural gas exploration. Some people welcomed a chance for new employment, while others warned of serious environmental damage.

  “Wonder if they’ve driven the housing prices up here like they did in Pittsburgh?” he mused.

  Brent caught on immediately. “I know. Right? Priced a bunch of people I know out of any of the downtown apartments when all the fracking headquarters came to town
. Fuckin’ fracking.”

  Travis’s thoughts moved back to the hell gate. “I don’t think the energy or entity is actually taunting us,” he said, thinking carefully before he spoke. “I suspect it’s more primal than that, more animalistic. A wolf doesn’t taunt its prey. So I don’t think the genius loci engineered the accident to trap us. More likely, it’s like that bus crash—another way to stir up emotions, since the ghouls didn’t work.”

  The set of Brent’s mouth told Travis that his partner wasn’t completely convinced, but the ex-cop didn’t argue. Travis parked the Crown Vic, and they walked into a mom-and-pop restaurant called “Shelly’s Place” where practically every seat was taken.

  “I can seat you, but you’ll have to wait a bit,” a harried young woman said, flashing a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You can stand over there, but don’t block the door.”

  Travis went one way, Brent the other, edging in on the already waiting customers who clustered in the entrance. Brent clasped his hands in front of him, staring out over the busy dining room, but Travis knew the detective was listening closely to all the chatter. Travis intended to do the same.

  “…out on Route 144. The Simmons family got hit by a truck—”

  “…saw the ambulances go by. Van caught on fire. Heard it’s already on YouTube.”

  “…can’t imagine there’ll be survivors.”

  The door opened behind him, and Travis had to step closer to the people bunched near him to avoid being run over. He bumped into a woman and murmured an apology.

  “Travis Dominick? Is that really you after all these years?” The bottle-blonde woman in her middle years who was in front of Travis grinned. “Oh, my lands. I haven’t seen you since…I don’t know how long. What brings you back to Bellefonte?”

  Travis felt Brent’s gaze on him and knew he’d face some razzing when they got back to the car. He searched his memory for the woman’s name. Mrs. Kittering , his mind supplied, along with the fact that she had been one of his catechism teachers and a very active member of the PTA. And, unfortunately, a friend of his mother’s.

  “Just passing through,” Travis said, hoping he sounded sincere. Lying might be a sin, but hardly the worst he’d committed. Or, if some of the priests were right, a white lie hardly compared to the abomination of his gift. “We got caught in the traffic out on Route 144. Didn’t look like we’d get through any time soon, so I figured we could come here and see if the pie is as good as it used to be.”

  Mrs. Kittering laughed. Her bright pink lipstick accentuated her pale skin. “Oh, the pie’s awesome, like always. Which you’d know if you came home more than once in a blue moon.”

  Travis schooled his expression, although he flinched internally at her words. “My job keeps me pretty busy in the city,” he said, and inside, he felt like a kid called to the principal’s office.

  “I heard you’re not a priest anymore.”

  “I run a halfway house and recovery program. Similar work, different title.” He tried to keep the defensiveness out of his voice. He wasn’t entirely surprised Mrs. Kittering knew. While his mother had said she was utterly shamed by Travis’s choice to leave the priesthood, she wouldn’t miss the chance to get others to climb on the bandwagon against Travis.

  “The good Lord works in mysterious ways,” Mrs. Kittering said, patting him on the arm. Travis had no idea what she meant by that, whether she accepted his choice, or felt—like the Sinistram—that he’d eventually be forced back into the collar by circumstances beyond his control.

  “The world’s a very mysterious place,” he replied as neutrally as possible.

  “They’ve got a table for us,” Brent said, tapping him on the shoulder. Travis didn’t miss the curious look Mrs. Kittering gave Brent and wondered if his mother had asked for her friends to pray for his soul.

  Travis didn’t say anything until they were in the booth. “Thanks, man.”

  “I’ve got your back,” Brent said with a grin. “Some enemies are scarier than others, right?”

  “I prefer the ones I can shoot.” Travis looked over the menu, which hadn’t changed. “I imagine the cook is the same, which means everything’s good—and homemade. And save room for dessert. It’s worth extra time at the gym.”

  Travis scanned the faces at the tables around them. Some looked vaguely familiar, but he doubted he could put names to them.

  “You think the genius loci knew, somehow, and decided to play with our heads?” Brent asked, startling Travis from his thoughts.

  “Huh?”

  Brent sat back, drinking his soda. “Benny served with me. So handling that situation wouldn’t have been easy with a total stranger, but seeing him like that, knowing he—” Brent looked away. “It’s rough. ‘Upsetting’ doesn’t quite cover it. And now there’s an accident that’s not only going to be traumatic for the community, but it’s in your hometown, and I get the feeling this isn’t your favorite place anymore.”

  That was an understatement. “It’s…uncomfortable.”

  “In other words, we might be off our game, exactly like the nexus wants.”

  Travis wanted to resist the idea that the energy had enough sentience to be conniving. Demons could certainly be crafty; after all, they served the Father of Lies—or some kind of chaotic energy. But the hell-maggots had been parasitic, and ghouls were notorious opportunists.

  “I’m still trying to figure out whether the genius loci is a ‘who’ or a ‘what,’” Travis admitted. “Forces of nature can be destructive without being malicious.”

  “Animals do some pretty complicated stuff that we say is ‘just instinct,’ but it’s damn strategic,” he continued. “And animals can learn. So if you’ve got a force with the intelligence of a wild creature that’s been behind this cycle for centuries…maybe forever…it might learn a thing or two about how to lure in prey or avoid enemies. Doesn’t mean it’s truly sentient.”

  The server brought their food, and it proved to be just as delicious as Travis remembered. All conversation stopped as the two men dug in, and Travis savored the homemade meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy, and Brent’s pot roast and potatoes looked just as good. They polished off everything on their plates and still ordered pie—cherry for Travis, apple for Brent—when the server refilled their coffee.

  Travis leaned back, feeling the knot in his shoulders loosen for the first time since they left the cemetery. All around them, conversation buzzed about the accident, the local family with four children who had been involved, and the truck driver. With first responders still at the scene, everything was conjecture, but Travis knew that tomorrow all the diners would have the scoop from friends and family who were the cops, EMTs, and firefighters. Small towns had plenty of secrets, but nothing stayed hidden for long.

  “You’ve got nerve, coming back here.”

  The short, tiny woman who stood at the end of their table fairly vibrated with anger. She looked just like Travis remembered, except for more gray hair, and a few more lines around her mouth. Maria Grace Dominick shared the same green eyes and black hair as her son, but he’d gotten his height from his father.

  “I didn’t come because of you,” Travis said, keeping his voice level and controlling his breathing. “And I didn’t intend to bother you. We were just passing through.”

  Maria Grace glanced from Travis to Brent and back again, her lip curling. “You brought a friend here?”

  Travis met her gaze levelly. “My work partner. And yes, I have friends.”

  “It wasn’t bad enough that everyone in town knew you left Holy Orders,” she hissed. Travis knew without looking that despite speaking in a stage whisper, the rest of the diner could hear every word and that the patrons had turned to watch the show. “But you bring your filth with you?”

  “There’s no point in having this discussion,” Travis said, as he dug out his wallet to pay the check. “You didn’t have to come over.”

  “I thought the priesthood would heal you, take
away those sinful abilities,” Mary Grace snarled. “Did they throw you out?”

  “We’ve been over this before, mother.” Travis raised his head and made eye contact. “They recruited me for those abilities, used them for their own purposes, and broke most of the commandments in the process. I left them, not the other way around.”

  “Liar! The Church hates what you are.”

  “Not when it finds a use for me,” Travis replied.

  “You shouldn’t be so hard on your son,” Brent said with a smile and an exaggerated drawl. “I’m a demon magnet.”

  Travis almost swallowed his tongue at the way Mary Grace sputtered.

  “Demons killed my parents and my brother,” Brent went on, as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. “I miss them every day. And here you are, hale and healthy with a living son, and you can’t get your head out of your ass long enough to appreciate what you’ve got.”

  “Don’t use that kind of language—”

  “So saying ‘ass’ is bad, but hating your son isn’t?” Brent’s smile had turned shark-like. “Lady, your priorities are fucked up.” He glanced at Travis. “Come on. We got what we came for.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “We don’t have our information available online, I’m sorry to say,” Connie Sciallo, head of the Cooper City Historical Association, said self-consciously as she opened the door to the archive. “Just hasn’t been the money for that.”

  “That’s all right,” Trent assured her. “I’m used to researching the old-fashioned way.”

  “I thought at first, you might be either with those energy people, or one of the folks protesting,” Connie said. At Travis’s look of confusion, she smiled. “You know, Preston Energy? The people doing the fracking for natural gas and building the pipeline? It’s been like a civil war around here, with some people focused on new jobs and others afraid for what all that’s going to do to the drinking water and the mess they’ll leave behind.”