Demon Key

by David Brookover

  “That’s the way I see it, too.”

  “But if we couldn’t see him through this mist, how was he going to get a clean shot at Dex?” Teddi asked, her mind awhirl with possible ambush scenarios.

  Dex grinned at Jackson and jerked his thumb her way. “She’s always comin’ up with bull’s-eye questions like that. Teddi, you have a good head on those pretty little shoulders of yours.”

  Teddi was glad that they couldn’t see her blush.

  Jackson closed his knife and slipped it into his pocket. “Maybe the shooter had something else in mind for you, Dex.”

  Dex knitted his brow. “Like what?”

  Jackson peered down at the broken dock edge. “I just don’t know.”

  “You’re the psychic — you’re supposed to know these things,” Dex persisted.

  “There’s not a lot for me to go on at the moment. Let’s get out of here, and maybe I’ll think of some way to get the old psychic juices flowing.”

  Again, Teddi suspected that Jackson was holding back information, and it infuriated her. She glanced at the broken dock. What could’ve done that to those thick planks? The shooter? Not a chance.

  Suddenly, Teddi fervently wanted to be safely tucked into her dry motel bed.

  Chapter 24

  Portable floodlights flooded Dex’s yard with daylight as Dex, Jackson, and Teddi splashed into view on the battered walkway. FBI agents scurried over the crime scene like a swarm of black ants, silently scrutinizing, collecting, and marking all possible evidence. Teddi located the supervisor of the local FBI crime scene investigative team, Carl Landers. He was easy to spot. He was tall and lanky, and his physical movements were awkward. But, he was a whiz in the lab.

  Teddi led him away from the others.

  “What’s up, Special Agent McCoy?” he asked gruffly, upset at the interruption of his long-established routine.

  Teddi removed the two plastic pouches from her raincoat pocket and pressed them into his hands. “I need you to run tests on these samples yesterday,” she emphasized.

  His brows shot up. “Clues?”

  “Absolutely. We found them out on the dock where we believe Deputy Carlos Fuentes was murdered earlier today,” she explained.

  He gestured toward the lighted yard. “But what about all this? There’s so much area to cover yet,” he complained.

  “Let Vince run the show. I need you to run with these now. They’re important.”

  “But what about Special Agent Wilkerson? He’ll have my hide if I leave before we’ve completed our search.”

  “Leave Ryan to me. Now get going,” she ordered. “Sneak around the dark side of the house so Ryan can’t see you leave.”

  Carl appeared wary.

  “And Carl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Call me the second you have results, and I mean the second!”

  He nodded once and jogged around Dex’s house.

  Ryan sauntered up to Teddi. “Where’s Carl going?” he demanded.

  “Carl’s running an errand for me,” she replied stiffly.

  “You have no right to . . .”

  She planted her hands on her hips. “I have every right. This is my investigation, and I’ll give the orders.”

  “Like hell you will,” he snarled.

  “We’re supposed to be working as a team here, Ryan, but make no mistake about it, it’s my investigation. You’re the show-and-tell guy who reports our progress to John Q. Public, while I direct the show from behind the scenes. Just do your job and lose the whining. We have a real bad guy to catch,” she retorted, aware that she had just revealed Charlie’s confidential strategy. “Keep that in mind. The investigation’s what’s important here, not your petty grievances. Don’t lose sight of that. Okay?”

  He spun without speaking and joined the other agents.

  Jackson walked up behind her. “High maintenance, isn’t he?”

  “Very,” Teddi responded, relieved that this inevitable confrontation was behind her. “C’mon, we’ve got to get Dex to a hospital and you to a motel.”

  He punched in a speed dial number on his cell phone and asked his driver to bring the limousine around.

  Jackson quietly bickered with the night manager at Teddi’s motel for ten minutes, until the beleaguered man finally caved to his guest’s request. Jackson handed the frazzled man a credit card, and the deal was officially consummated.

  “Tough sell?” Dex asked, with a glimmer in his red-rimmed eyes.

  Jackson chuckled. “Let’s just say that I outbid the competition in this capitalistic venture, and we now have a center of operations in the one and only business suite on the top floor.”

  Teddi grinned. Jackson was certainly full of surprises.

  “And, Dex, I insist that you share the suite with me.” When Jackson saw that Dex was about to object, he raised his hand. “I won’t take no for an answer. It’ll be more difficult for our friend to eliminate you here among all these potential witnesses.”

  “Well, if you put it that way . . .”

  “Then it’s settled. I suggest we head up that way now. The clock is ticking.”

  The elevator slowly conveyed them to the fifth floor and shuddered to a stop.

  Jackson pointed down the left hallway. “This way, I believe.”

  He opened the doors on the spacious three-room suite. An elegantly appointed central meeting room separated two bedrooms with connecting bathrooms. Teddi removed her holster and laid it on the cherry conference table.

  “Cozy,” she said.

  Dex laughed. “Yeah, like camping out at Madison Square Garden.”

  “I’ve arranged for my driver to pack some of your belongings and move them here, Dex. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Dex patted his bandaged arm supported by a blue sling. “Not at all. I couldn’t manage to bring much myself anyway, with this bad wing and all.”

  “Good. Now let’s get down to business. What’s on the agenda, Teddi?”

  She had to give Jackson credit. He yielded to her official authority, but he clearly had slipped into the leadership role right before her eyes. Pretty slick, but not slick enough. She was on to him.

  She smiled at Jackson. “Could you check the fridge for a bottle of cold water?” she asked sweetly, pleased at reclaiming some of her usurped authority.

  “Could you make that two?” Dex added, winking knowingly at Teddi when Jackson wasn’t looking. “I’m parched from this damned pain medicine that hospital doc gave me.”

  Jackson reluctantly checked the refrigerator and returned with three bottles and one glass. He handed the glass and one bottle to Teddi. “Still prefer a glass, Boss?”

  “Thanks,” she said, impressed with his memory. She was learning that Jackson didn’t miss much. “Now, as I see it, we should divide our efforts according to our individual strengths. I’ll handle communications with the FBI labs and research staff. Dex, you be the source of any local input we need. And, Jackson, you do . . . what you do best.”

  “Which is?” Dex plied, and took a long pull from his bottled water.

  “Seeing crimes, past and future,” he replied in a low voice.

  Dex’s mouth dropped open, and a small trickle of water dribbled down his chin. “No shit?”

  Jackson’s face was stone. “No shit.”

  “All right, we’ve got that over with. Now, Dex, fill us in on your visit . . . make that your first visit to Ike Noonan’s place,” she prompted.

  He hastily brought Jackson up-to-date. “Teddi researched a possible connection between our crime to another one that occurred right here back in 1856. She found a couple newspaper articles in the old Everglades Press. I dug up a couple more articles over at Noonan’s. The timin’ of that old crime was the same as it is now. Late spring and early summer. And, the 1856 kidnappin’s involved heavyset women as well.”

  Teddi’s face brightened. “Really! That pretty much nails the connection between these two crimes, even though they’re sepa
rated by a hundred and fifty years.” She realized that she had interrupted Dex. “Sorry, please go on.”

  Dex grinned. “No problem, Teddi. As I was sayin’, the kidnappin’s started with an unusually heavy rainy season, and ended a few weeks after the rain stopped and the local floodwaters receded.”

  “Not when the rain stopped?” Jackson interrupted.

  “Uh, no.”

  Jackson looked puzzled. “Go on, please.”

  Teddi studied the psychic’s expression. What was going on behind that southern-fried mask of his?

  “Then, Ike related a local Indian fable about a monster that roamed the Everglades during that same time.”

  Was it her fatigued imagination, or did Jackson’s attention sharpen at the mention of the reported monster?

  Dex recited the tale, and when he finished, he asked if there were any questions.

  “Sounds preposterous,” Teddi said skeptically. “Blaming those disappearances on a swamp thing.”

  Jackson remained thoughtfully composed.

  “Your turn, Jackson,” Teddi said. More lies again? Or finally some truth for the first time?

  He removed the handkerchief from his pocket and laid it carefully on the table. He unfolded it as if it contained a priceless treasure. In the center lay the bullet he had crudely dug out of Dex’s living room wall — the bullet that nearly scrambled Teddi’s brains. He then dropped the bullet into the open right palm and faced his companions.

  “I’m going to see if this bullet has a story to tell me.”

  Dex regarded him suspiciously. “Just what kind of story are you talkin’ about?”

  “A story about the shooter.”

  Dex looked at Teddi. “This I’ve got to see.”

  “Give him a chance,” she shot back.

  Dex shrugged.

  “This might not be pretty,” he warned them. “Sometimes when I’m in a psychic trance, I scream and convulse like a crazed jumping bean if the sight is violent.” He paused. “With most FBI investigations, they usually are.”

  “We’re ready,” she said.

  “Wait!” Dex said. “If you get all riled up, should we roust you?”

  “Under no circumstances should you interfere with my visions. My mind could be permanently frozen in that revelation until I die,” he answered sternly.

  “Like a human vegetable,” Teddi said.

  Jackson scowled at her.

  Dex bowed his head slightly. “Understood. Do your stuff.”

  Jackson reclined on the couch, eased his eyelids shut, and closed his fingers tightly around the bullet.

  With shallow breaths, Dex and Teddi nervously anticipated Jackson’s psychic spell.

  They didn’t have long to wait.

  Chapter 25

  Jackson’s mind was a blank screen at first; then, it exploded into a meaningless kaleidoscope of vivid fluid colors converging and blending with each other. The movement mesmerized him, relaxed him. The colored swirls continued to writhe and flow randomly, forming a multitude of beautiful and ghastly shapes, each image lasting less than a second. There was no sound. No smell. No feeling. No time.

  Not yet.

  The colors dimmed as if a black cloud blocked the sunlight. The blues dimmed to grays, the ruby reds to shades of burgundy, the yellows to dirty whites, and the greens to hazels. The liquid motion slowed by degrees until it eventually froze, creating a vague still life of a sparse thicket. He strained to create shapes from the ambiguous landscape, but they remained meaningless.

  Suddenly, the wooly veil lifted from the scene like a theater curtain rising on the first act. An intense light glared from the growing opening, nearly blinding him, and then there was abrupt twilight. The trees remained silhouettes. Outlines. Barely distinguishable in the burgeoning nightscape.

  Jackson strived to visualize details in the new lighting, but it was slow in coming. First, a hand appeared. It cast a pencil-thin ruby beam into the gloom. The vision widened. Jackson now saw that the hand was attached to a human silhouette — a very large male — who clutched a rifle in his other hand.

  Jackson understood the psychic process and remained patient. The experts called it revelatory osmosis. It was akin to watching a silent movie with a supernatural knowledge track.

  He immediately recognized the silhouette as the shooter at Dex’s place. No reasoning required. He just knew.

  The scene sharply shifted to a cemetery on a foggy hillock softly illuminated by a primrose moon. Grave markers dotted the dismal setting like sooty stains. Atop the hillock sat a sizeable brick mausoleum, overseeing the other gravesites like a menacing overlord. Unkempt monochrome grass sprouted between the markers like stubborn cowlicks, and a fractured stone path split the cemetery and wound its way up to the broad mausoleum door.

  The scene skipped to a different night at the same cemetery. Earlier than his previous vision. Jackson seemed to be drifting back in time.

  He watched the silhouette — the shooter — push a wheelbarrow along the path up to the mausoleum. With considerable physical effort, the shooter maneuvered his cumbrous cargo over the threshold. The blustery winds stripped the tarp from the wheelbarrow and revealed a hefty woman’s naked body, glistening with perspiration — no, she was painted in blood. Her own blood. The shooter was the kidnapper!

  He shivered mentally. Where was this place? An old cemetery shouldn’t be too difficult to locate in the area. After all, how many could there be?

  A familiar, terrific stench assailed his senses, like the one they had encountered earlier in Dex’s backyard. But there was more than the horrific odor — evil wafted from the mausoleum opening. Dread sparked his nerves and prickled his flesh.

  The shooter shoved the wheelbarrow deeper into the mausoleum and closed the door. All went black. End of act I.

  A feeble moaning drifted to his ears from the ancient burial chamber. Pleading so soft that it was barely audible. He might’ve considered it a figment of his active imagination, but the revelatory osmosis instructed him otherwise. The pleas were real. The blood-painted victim was real. And the danger was real.

  Sweat dotted his face. Horror stabbed his spine — her horror. He was now experiencing the victim’s suffering.

  A daylight visual scene suddenly displaced the physical encounter. Jackson had no idea where he was in time.

  Teens of all ages wearing disparate fashion styles filled the landscape. He listened to their raucous laughter and playful screams, crude jokes and taunts, and reckless gossip and cell-phone chatter. Asphalt fields cultivated uneven rows of cars, pickups, and motorcycles. Cigarette smoke drifted from cracked car windows, and a stand of oaks shadowed the parking lot. The grounds crew finished mowing the grass inside the football stadium, and student volunteers started painting the gridiron lines.

  He was observing life at a high school. But which one? No information was forthcoming. Did this scene occur in the past, or was it yet to happen? Again, no information was forthcoming. His revelatory osmosis track faded, and that was strange.

  Were his psychic visions being partially blocked by the shooter? By someone else? Or, was the fired bullet he dug from Dex’s wall too trifling for him to obtain a strong psychic vision?

  Jackson sensed that some aspect of this visualization was off kilter, but what? Why? How? No information was forthcoming.

  He tried in vain to discover the name of the high school from signs on the campus buildings, vehicle bumpers, or even student tattoos. Zippo. But the word quit wasn’t in his vocabulary. He mentally strained to check out the wristwatches or pocket watches worn by passing students — anything that would indicate the time of the setting. Nada.

  Then Jackson was abruptly transported to another place. Time. Shrieks filled his new world. Bloodcurdling shrieks! He was adrift in an obsidian sea, isolated from the world. The sane world. The hair stiffened on his scalp as if it were electrically charged. A gamy, rancid smell embraced him. That familiar malodor again. Bile erupted in his throat.
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  He suddenly realized — no, knew — that he was inside the blood-smeared woman who had been in the wheelbarrow — only they weren’t inside the mausoleum, but beneath it! Her senses were now linked with his.

  Beyond her shrieks, Jackson heard the muted splashing of waves. They were beside a body of water. It was a lake. The smell was even thicker there. His eyes watered, and his throat constricted against the rising bile.

  He groped blindly in the miserable darkness for an exit. An escape hatch. Any psychic doorway to flee the horrifying isolation. His panic escalated with hers, but everything he touched were seamless, clammy stone walls — tomb cold.

  He stopped. Something was approaching. Splashing in the lake. Something big! Her shrieking ceased, and he felt her go numb with shock. Hopelessness. Terror.

  His mouth was dust, and his heart a revved engine. His eyes were worthless in the blackness, which only heightened his alarm. His primal fear of the unknown.

  With each passing moment, the splashing grew nearer — more ominous. He sensed an entity so evil, so hostile, that the woman’s death was imminent. If he didn’t sever his psychic bond with the woman soon, his own life would be in jeopardy, too.

  Without warning, two flaming orange eyes appeared beside him! The breath of thousands of corpses fanned his face and rustled his hair.

  Jackson waited for the inevitable.

  The hostile eyes glared at him.

  And Jackson just waited.

  A mouth opened below the eyes. Jagged rows of enormous teeth enveloped him, and the powerful jaws closed against his helpless form!

  He threw his hands over his face and screamed! Screamed! SCREAMED!

  Chapter 26

  Sudden pounding on the motel suite door startled Dex and Teddi, and they nearly jumped out of their skins. She plucked her Beretta from its holster and peered out the peephole. The irate motel manager glared impatiently at the door, waiting for a response.