by Kezzy Sparks
That won’t impress me at all. As far as I am concerned, it’s a sign of a very targeted black magic attack.
“Completely mysterious and unsettling,” remarks the news anchor. “Something has come to haunt Buffalo.”
And on that note, the report ends, but just as I avert my eyes, my red phone starts to ring. My heart often skitters when the thing goes, but today the jerk is harder.
“Mel, this is Dayton Clyde. Please drive over I need help promptly.”
I remember the name; Clyde is the farmer I just saw. The voice is also the same. And there is panic in it.
“My cows are getting killed. I’m ruined.” He repeats to me what he said on TV.
“Give me your address,” I say, fast. “I’ll be on my way.” I don’t need much by way of explanation. This crisis has been unfolding right before my eyes.
The baffling problem is now mine, so briefly I’m forced to think about it more. It can’t be everyday predators, for we don’t have those in the wild in New York state. No lions or leopards. Nor do we have any hyenas or cheetahs, for goodness sake. Here we only have our coyotes and the occasional bear, but they don’t do the kind of damage I saw. It therefore can only be some paranormal terror.
I google farmer Clyde’s address on my Dell desktop. The computer will probably yield the same info as using my car’s Navistar GPS, but for two reasons, my practice is always to consult Google maps first. Number one is that I get an immediate picture of the area, and I can put a cross on my activity map, creating the first record. Second, I get an idea of where I will be driving to. Which helps, because when I finally get to go, navigating using the GPS becomes only a secondary thing.
Clyde’s Farm is just outside of Clarence. From here, it might take me about twenty minutes since nighttime traffic is often thin.
I rack my brain again as I am about to go. The attacks are supernatural, of course, but from which exact source? Could it be ghosts or demons? It’s hard for that to be, because those apparitions hardly ever tear through physical skin when attacking. And they hardly ever want to harm animals. Has rural Buffalo come under the control of a horde of vampires that feed on animal blood? It’s scary, and I don’t usually want to entangle myself with those bloodsuckers, but I will work the case.
I have packed into my denim tote my sniffer wand, the dropper I charged this morning, a stinger for battle, and then the curse-breaking hammer that I don’t ever leave on missions like this. Also not to be left behind is a special pike-shaped wand I call the Graveyard, the grand finisher of all things.
Before leaving, I must like usual let Zed know where I’m going. “Have you been following the news?” I try to sound casual, even though I am troubled.
“There’s been lots recently,” he says. “What’s new?”
“Those mauled cows,” I answer. “I am heading over to Clarence to see about them. The farmer just called.”
“I see,” he says. “Actually I imagined he eventually would—considering what we witnessed.”
“Yep, I thought so, too, and here I go.”
“Be safe.” He is hanging up. “And don’t hesitate to call for backup should you need it.”
Hastening, I slap my tote on my shoulder and head out. The parking lot is clear, my car is the only one left. From afar it looks like a phantom ride.
Buffalo’s streets are now largely deserted, unless I drive past a bar, restaurant or fast-food joint. There, I see quite some activity: people milling around, some smoking. Strangely I like the smell of cigars even though I have never been tempted to smoke. Maybe it’s because my father used to be a smoker himself.
From Williams, I take the I-90 and then cruise on it till I get to Main, where I get off. Now I only have to keep on Main; there won’t be any more turns before I hit Clarence.
Rural driving is a favorite of mine. I like the quietness. I enjoy looking at the dark skies and hear the engine croon while shadows glide by. As I go, I soon crack a window to catch the smells of vegetation. There is the whiff of late spring blooms, of dandelions and daisies, but my nose is later assaulted by the stench of a dead skunk.
Those little furry carnivores die in their hundreds daily on America’s roads, and it’s sad—but the strange thing apparently is that not everyone agrees this is a bad thing. Believe me, a sizeable number of people exists out there who think of skunks as nasties to be wiped out, which is terrible, but for my part I don’t share in that depraved view. I’d say let the damn creatures continue to live, and perform their role in the environment.
This dead one, though, is reeking, and I must roll up my window to stop getting overwhelmed.
The Vic’s speedo is at a steady fifty, and the miles are tumbling away. Not long after, I see some lit farmhouses, then there is a notice to slow down, and then a big sign glows. Welcome to Clarence.
Mr. Clyde’s farm is on Davison Road. I turn away from Main onto it, and before a few minutes have elapsed, I’m stopped at his gate.
His home is a bit of a distance from the road. The access track is unlit, but the Vic’s beams should do a good job of showing the way. As I am about to turn in, an engine suddenly starts in the dark. I see the headlights… is it a bike or an ATV?
“Drive right in. We’re waiting.” A voice I recognize as the farmer’s calls when I open my window. There is still that tang of terror in it, and I start to shiver.
Clyde is to one side of the entryway and keeps waving me through. I turn to go in. Soon, he follows behind, and his twin lights shimmer in my rear view mirror. His farmhouse is a large bungalow, and its windows are lit. A woman with long hair stands outside, next to a yard light. She holds the hand of a scared elementary schoolgirl.
“It’s a big, frightening mess.” Farmer Clyde shakes my hand as I come out. “Oh, by the way I’m Dayton.” His palms are calloused and rough. “Meet my wife Diane, and my little girl Sylvie.”
After the introduction, he points. “The pens are way over that side. Let’s go, jump on.”
He is in a hurry, and I am not surprised.
I only wave a hi at the females. A spare helmet is on the ready, and I don’t hesitate to mount, even though I haven’t ever taken a ride on an ATV.
“Want me to follow?” calls the distraught wife.
“No, stay and look after Sylvie. It’s too bad out there.”
Scarcely has he finished saying that than he’s kicking the ATV into motion. He starts off reasonably slow, perhaps only for my sake, but as we leave the yard behind and are on a dirt track, he guns the thing. The motion becomes like riding an army tank, bumpy to the worst degree.
Less than a minute in, a piercing moo rips the darkness into two halves. Farmer Clyde shouts something, but I can’t hear him well. He speeds up more, and the motion is bumpiest. Truly, if he goes any faster, we will be thrown off.
There are more moos. Clyde hits on his brakes, and we slow down toward the pens that are surrounded by bush.
“It’s here.” He points, but I scarcely can hear him because the engine is rattling in my ears.
The animals gaze at the ATV lights. I have never seen the eyes of so many beasts shine so bright.
We disembark. Dayton doesn’t turn off the beams, but I still bring out my flashlight. Clyde does the same with his. My heart pounds as I sense something.
Immediately, we run to where one cow is wriggling on the ground. Just as we get closer, a shadow jumps from between the cow’s flailing legs and churns the darkness with its strange form. It has eyes that glow a sharp red and a mouth with huge fangs. It shakes its head and soon crawls fast toward the bushes. The last I see of it is a long and possibly scaly tail whipping from side to side, and then the thing disappears.
I don’t know if the farmer has seen it, for the shadowy creature is far from normal. It must be a magical apparition, and you may need gifted eyes to glimpse it.
“Another, bitten again.” Anger chokes Clyde’s voice. “It happened, same, two hours ago before I called you.”
> “Any idea what’s going on?” I ask without letting him know of the shadowy terror.
“It can’t be a person doing this, or an ordinary predator,” he says.
His eyes must be tearing up, going by what I pick in his voice.
The unlucky cow has been severely bitten on the udder. The skin is torn open and blood and milk are pouring out. Poor thing is still kicking out and flailing in pain. It bites its tongue, and froth is coming out, so is snort from the nose. There is no way it’s going to survive given the ugly gaping wound that goes deep into the belly.
Mr. Clyde exhales sadly. “I will have to put it down. No need to wait.” He then points to where the other one of tonight lies. “I already put down four, this will be the fifth.”
“I’m so sorry for your troubles,” I say.
I go to see the one he already killed. It, too, has a torn udder, the wound going into the stomach. A few flies are buzzing over the wound. Some blood is still oozing and then curdling. On the cow’s head are two small jagged holes probably from pistol bullets.
Dayton shuffles closer to me. “I really had to shoot it,” he repeats. “And I’ll do the same to that other one.”
He takes out his gun and fires at the struggling cow. He fires a second shot, again into the head, and then he crumbles to the ground himself, broken. The cow lets out a final moo, and then after one last kick, breathes its last. A silence falls that is only broken by the stampeding of the others.
It’s something I never want to experience.
Thirty-six
I saw that shadow, and I must find out what it is.
“Let me get down to work,” I say to Dayton as I help him to stand up. “I need to get back to my car.”
Just before we leave, I make sure to initialize my dropper. All along, it has been primed to locate the Lady in Red, but we must find this new evil asap. I bring it out and point its sharpened end at the dead cow. It should be able to pick up the magical signature of that shadowy fiend that ran away.
Convinced the dropper has smelled, I do the same with the sniffer. It, too, must pick up the scent. I’m sickened and horrified by what I have seen, so I want to solve this case quickly with all the resources I have. When I am satisfied with the priming, we hop back onto the ATV and ride back to the house.
There is enough light to work with on the paved court in front of Farmer Clyde’s home. It’s even brighter on the wide, single-step porch but droppers only work well on natural ground. I get into the garden and spin, before releasing. The wand lands pointing, by rough estimate, to the south west of us. The fiend or culprit must be somewhere in that general direction, but how far away I don’t know yet. I now measure the angle more accurately using the magnetic compass and protractor, and then draw. The line I get isn’t far different from what I’d initially estimated.
To finish the locate, I must drive to another part of town and then repeat.
“Come with me. You must see this,” I say to Dayton. My adrenaline is already trickling.
Clyde wants to mount his ATV, but I tell him no, let’s drive in the Crown Victoria together. We speed out of his yard and then turn south on Davison, heading toward Main. Once we reach Main, we turn left, which is like going east. Clarence is not big, and before long, we arrive at some unbuilt area. The ground is pristine here, and we are under a lone streetlamp that is unusually bright for its type. I do the second drop, then after checking the meeting point of the two lines, I find that it’s near a T intersection. The roads are Schur and Boyd.
“We have to go there, right away,” I say.
When back in the car, I enter the point on my Navistar and then press navigate. It takes exactly five minutes to turn into Schur, and then one more to reach Boyd. The point of interest is a magnificent, shadowed house that stands about fifty yards from the road. And here, like most American farms, there isn’t a fence with a locked gate, so we buzz in.
A dog soon barks, but we ignore it. Getting excited, I bring out the sniffer wand. It was vibrating already while in the tote, but the lashing gets stronger as I point it to the ground. The fiend passed through here and must hide nearby.
Within moments, the little whip has led us to a large barn set off from the grand farmhouse at a distance of approximately thirty yards. Apparently when a sniffer locks onto something, it makes the unendowed see things they never would have seen. Mr. Clyde exclaims as he gapes into the barn. A big shadow thing wallows, staring back at us with glistening eyes. The body though is hard to make out properly, but from what I can tell, the fiend must be a giant alligator.
Already knowing we are up against a monster, I yank my stinger out of the tote. I brought it along for a situation like this. Similar to a Taser, it stuns human opponents but is more paralyzing to familiars like this gator.
“Turn on the light,” I say to Dayton, whose hand fumbles, and then he locates his flashlight in his jacket. Its bulb is weak, but we see the monster’s body at least in better detail. It’s scaly all the way, and sure the thing is a huge alligator!
Alert to our presence, the fiend opens its mouth and starts to hiss. Droplets of thick saliva spray from its tongue. It whirls about, whipping its tail, perhaps looking for an opportunity to spring at us. Soon the hissing turns into growling, and that causes chilly crabs to crawl under my skin. I aim the stinger and fire. The released pulse is hard to see but must have hit the gator, for the nasty thing temporarily halts its advance.
Surely I could do better with brighter lighting but must work with what we got. I aim again hoping to shoot at a soft spot, like the eyes—because the gator’s tough scales would work to prevent the pulses reaching soft tissue and paralyzing it.
Although the stinger fires pulses, it doesn’t have a trigger like a normal Taser. What it has is a recessed groove at about the midpoint of its length, and once I squeeze that and chant, a magic beam is released. How powerful the beam is depends on the pressure I apply, and the loudness of my chant. The wand’s only disadvantage is that it cannot be used with one hand, but always two. One holds and aims, while the other squeezes the firing groove.
I fire another shot, still aiming at the eyes. The pulse travels but must have hit hard skin because the monster whirls, hissing and growling, but doesn’t go limp. Instead it spreads its forelegs out like it would rush to strike.
Just then, we hear a noise coming from the main house. The lights there are now lit.
“Who are you, and get away from my property?” a voice shouts. Running toward us is a man in pajama pants and a loose-fitting jacket. “I said get away from here.” The man holds a gun at us.
Farmer Clyde turns and points his flashlight at the man even though the lighting outside has generally been good. I glimpse the new threat. It’s worse, because a gun can do real damage.
Tense, we behold the man who has stopped in his tracks.
“Aren’t you Butch Smiryl?” Dayton recognizes him at last.
“What do you want from here?” Butch bellows and lifts his hand as though he would fire his pistol.
Immediately I aim my stinger at him and release. This particular magic volley is powerful and glows like a cigarette tip. It flies at Butch and gets him on the hand. He loses grip of the gun, and it drops to the ground. The hand now dangles.
It’s now easier to manhandle him, but while advancing I am surprised by a whiplashing movement behind me. As I turn, the gator has caught the hem of my jeans and is dragging me backward.
“Take care.” Dayton warns.
Fighting to prevent myself from getting mauled, I aim the wand and fire at the gator. The magic pulse hits the monster on the upper body, which is hard and almost impenetrable. The gator reels a bit, but its grip on my hem remains strong; it almost tears the pants to threads.
I aim a second shot at the head then squeeze again. Still, the monster isn’t disabled but at least releases its grip. Meanwhile Butch has rushed Dayton, and the two grapple. The enemy is strong and can wrestle even with one hand weakene
d.
Aiming to assist, I dart toward Dayton, but suddenly I am side swiped by the gator. Its claws are ready to sink into my body and are sharp like pincers. I turn to take aim again, but this time the gator strikes at my legs with a bigger force, and down to the ground I go. The menacing creature roars, opening its jaws like it would swallow me, but I get a small opening to just fire a volley right into its mouth. That area is soft, and so the hit is a good one. I see the thing reel as a small dark pulse escapes at the back of its head. There is no way it can withstand that. It slides down and goes quiet, paralyzed.
Dayton and Butch still grapple. Butch has his hands wrapped around Clyde’s neck as though he would strangle. In a moment I have gathered myself to go and join. Even with his strength, the enemy can never stand the combined power of us both. I make things simpler by aiming the stinger at Butch’s shoulder, and before he can turn and attempt a lunge on me, I release. A big pulse catches him, and this time he screams and crushes to the ground.
“Stay there, you are under arrest,” I shout.
“You try anything, you die.” Clyde is emboldened and has picked up his nemesis’s pistol.
“Yes,” I yell. “Now tell us how you came to live with such evil magic.” I point to the still gator.
Butch is too stunned to mumble anything; he only whimpers.
It’s time to produce the graveyard wand, which I use to finish off evil familiars. I hammer it into the gator’s head, and that’s the end of it. There shan’t anymore be those attacks on Clyde’s cattle. What a horrifying night out here, and the worst is that there could be more.
Thirty-seven
It’s the morning of Saturday. Last night we left Butch's farm around midnight, and I drove back to Clyde's home to drop him off there. While at his farm, I did not forget to do the required curse breaking that I hadn’t done as we’d hurried to hunt for that shadowy gator. We rode again to the pens, and I fetched my hammer and stamped at the surrounding air. You can’t believe the smelly evil swirls that lifted up. I kept hammering and hammering until I was sure nothing was left. Mr. Clyde’s cows must have had the quietest sleep, and sweetest dreams, in a while.
