by Tim McGregor
“I was looking into the family history, on the Culpepper side. Old stuff, like going back a number of generations, and I was wondering if you knew anything on that subject.”
“I don’t know if I could help you there. Doesn’t Maggie know?”
“Only a couple generations. Her aunts and uncles, your grandparents, but not much beyond that.”
“I see. Is this for a school project?”
School project? Billie frowned. The woman really had no idea who she was. “No, just curious about my roots. Genealogy and stuff.”
“Well, I don’t know if I could be anymore helpful than Mags. I wonder if Earl would know.”
“Earl?”
“Another cousin,” Judith said. “There’s so many of them, one tends to lose track of them all. But Earl was big into history. I remember him borrowing all the photo albums a few years ago for research. He still hasn’t returned them, come to think of it.”
This was turning into a goose chase, Billie thought. “Cousin Earl, huh? Does he live in Ontario or…?”
“Waterford. They have a farm out there. Hold on a moment, I’ll find his number for you.”
While she waited for Judith to dredge up the number for yet another cousin, Billie mused idly that she may have missed her calling in life as some kind of researcher. Hunting down the history of Robin’s house and now digging up the hidden roots of the Culpepper family tree. Rotten roots, as it turned out.
“Here it is.” Judith came back on the line. After dictating the phone number, she said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Billie.”
“So do I.” Billie bit her lip, trying to decide how to end the call. “Thanks for your help, Judith. Maybe we could meet for coffee or something some time.”
“Mm, yes. Maybe in the spring.”
“Spring?”
“Dan and I are heading to Florida for the next two months. Neither of us much like winter anymore. So maybe when we get back.”
“Sure,” Billie said. A few stumbling notes of farewell and then Judith hung up. The idea of meeting for coffee hadn’t been revisited. Billie already knew that she would never hear from cousin Judith again.
She looked out the window at the snow swirling against the grey sky and wondered what the temperature was in Florida right now.
~
The man on the phone would only agree to meet in a church. He’d said it was dangerous to talk anywhere else. Saint Joseph’s Parish, just off Locke Street. They kept their doors open, the vicar paying little mind to the lonely souls who drifted in to sit in quiet contemplation. Third pew in from the tall doors, north side of the nave.
Amanda Troy stood at the entrance, just inside the old cathedral. The stone font to her left, the holy water in its basin reflecting the small candles lit under the feet of the Virgin. The church appeared empty and she wondered if she’d been had, the anonymous informant having fun at her expense. It wouldn’t be the first time. The price she paid for being a newshound, a visible one on a televised broadcast.
There was a creak of wood and there, to her right appeared the figure of a man. Rising from the pew as if he’d stretched out for a nap. He shifted about, waved her over.
Sliding into the pew next to him, she kept her voice low and her eyes open. The man appeared haggard and spent, with his hood pulled up over his head. It hid his face in shadow, but when he spoke she winced at the colour of his teeth. Grey, a lower incisor missing.
“This is all a bit cloak-and-dagger, isn’t it?” she said.
“Shh,” he replied, a gravel scratch of a voice. “You gotta whisper in a church.”
“What’s your name?” Amanda asked.
“You Catholic, Miss Troy?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s got everything to do with it,” he said.
“No. My family is Anglican. Me, not so much.”
“Anglican? That’s a pubic hair away from being atheist.”
Fears confirmed, she was being jerked around. This so-called informant appeared to be nothing more than a jittery junkie. “Does it matter?”
“It does when it comes to the truth. People who blab too much of it end up crucified.” He nodded at the alabaster crucifix suspended above the altar, the downcast eyes of the condemned saviour. “Just ask him.”
“Why don’t you ask him.” Amanda Troy rose to her feet, ready to get the hell out of here. “I have better things to do than listen to riddles.”
“You’re on the right track, Miss Troy. The occult angle. Be a shame to see you fumble the story now.”
One last chance, she decided, turning back to face him. “You said you had information about the fire in the punchbowl. And the deaths in the Murder House. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
“You got the money?”
She patted her bag. “What we agreed on.”
“Then sit down and learn to whisper.”
Amanda didn’t budge, letting the greasy man sweat for a moment. Letting him grasp the fact that she would walk if he was just out to jerk her chain. Judging from his appearance, he desperately needed the money.
She resumed her seat. “Spill,” she said.
“You were right about the fire in the Devil’s Punchbowl. That was a ritual being performed. By the church of Satan crew, no less. But it wasn’t meant to get out of control. Something went tits-up for them.”
“What were these Satanists doing?”
“That, I don’t know. Some bullshit ritual of theirs. But it got cocked up by this man.” Unfolding a piece of paper from his pocket, he laid it flat on the bench between them. “This son of a bitch walked in on it and killed them all.”
The crumpled paper was a police flyer about a suspect wanted in connection with a homicide. The grainy photo of a man sneering at the camera. John Herod Gantry, British expatriate. Amanda had heard the name before but had no intel on the man.
“Who is he?”
“A bastard of the worst kind,” said the informant. “A simple con man. Or a powerful magus. The devil himself. Opinions vary, but if you dig into this occult shit that’s going on in the city, this creepy fucker is always at the centre of it.”
“Was he one of these Satanists?”
“No. He had a beef with them. God knows what about. But here’s the interesting part.” The man unfolded another piece of paper. An official document of some kind. Death certificate. “This Gantry asshole died two weeks before the incident at the punchbowl. Knifed in the back seven times in prison.”
She looked ready to leave. “The man’s dead but you’re saying he was there?”
“Spooky, huh?” Tapeworm bobbed his head, grinning. “Dude walks out of the morgue, then crashes the party at the punchbowl. More people die.”
“So this John Gantry is responsible for the other deaths at that scene?”
“One at least. That nutjob, Szandor something. They had a beef.”
“The leader of the Satanists. What about?”
“Fuck if I know, but that’s beside the point. There’s a whole shitstorm brewing in the occult underground. And Gantry was linked up with a couple of others. Two of them you know.”
“Who?”
The man leaned back, grinning his putrid teeth at her. “You need to show me those colours before we go on.”
The reporter frowned. Digging into her bag, she withdrew and envelope and opened it for him to see the bills inside. “Who are the other two?”
“One of them is a cop. A detective named Mockler.”
She knew the man in question. A detective in the homicide unit that she had tried to question before. “Who’s the other one?”
“A chick. Psychic.” The man tilted in closer, the stench of rancid clothes and sour sweat rolling off of him. “They say she talks to dead people.”
~
The zombies were coming on fast, shambling and dripping with gore. Pushing in from every direction like a wave of death ready to overwhelm them with she
er numbers.
“On your left!” barked Gantry. “Gun him down quick!”
Hannah swung the pistol around and fired but the weapon went dead, the small meter at the bottom of the screen blinking as her ammunition went dry. The zombie lunged, rotting teeth chomping down and then she died.
Game over.
“Fuckin’ hell!” Hannah shook the plastic firearm in her hand. “I always run out of bullets on this level.”
“Must be a cache hidden somewhere.” Gantry slid the gun back into the slot on the arcade game, feeling a warm rush of satisfaction at the number of walking dead he’d laid to waste. “Just a matter of finding it.”
“You want to go again?” she said, her eyes still bright from adrenaline.
“That was the last of me coin. Do you fancy a bite to eat?”
The afternoon had been cheerily frittered away at the amusement arcades that lined the esplanade overlooking the sea. The beachfront strip, with its glittering arcades and ice cream shops, was deserted in winter. A shredded skin of newspaper tumbled along the tarmac, tossed by the wind off the sea. Needing to placate his sister, Gantry told Hannah to get her gear on. They were going to kill the afternoon with some mindless fun down on the tacky tourist strip.
Marching into a strong headwind, they pushed up the promenade to a tiny sliver of a pub on the next corner. The place was empty, starved for bodies in the off-season.
“Can I have a cider?” she asked when the woman brought him his pint.
“Your mum would kill me.”
“She wouldn’t have to know,” she countered.
“One crisis at a time, sweetheart.”
The food came and they tucked in. Halfway through, Gantry floated the idea, unsure of how it would go.
“You know, most books about the occult are utter dog shite,” he said.
Hannah froze, a chip stuck in the ketchup. “Really? I wouldn’t know.”
“Cut the act, Han. I saw your bedtime reading. Why’d you want to waste your time on that?”
Hannah thrust back against the chair, arms folding. “She snooped, didn’t she? The cow. God.”
“Fair enough,” he said, needing to keep her talking. Pissing her off would only make her clam up. He needed to know where she had gotten the books from. What arsehole had given them to her. And why? “She shouldn’t be snooping, that’s true. But you can’t blame her for having a fright at seeing those bloody things.”
The girl was seething. “She won’t let up on me, John. She’s on my case about everything I do. Who I’m hanging out with, who I’m texting, where do I go after school. She’s like a warden.”
“It just means she’s concerned, is all.” He sipped his pint, choosing his words carefully. “Thirteen is a crap age to be. You need more independence, your mam needs to learn to slack out the leash. Negotiating that, well, there’s bumps along the way.”
“Didn’t you leave home at my age?”
“We’re not talking about me.” He was already messing it up. Sod the responsible talk. “Look, forget your mum’s suffocating concerns. You’re on your own there. I need to know what you’re up to with these sodding books.”
“They’re just books, Uncle John. No big deal.”
“But they got ideas in them, don’t they? Ones that can lead the unwary down a rabbit hole if they don’t watch out.”
Hannah sipped from the straw, tilting her eyes at him. Out of the corner of her mouth, she said, “Is that how you got into it?”
Christ on a stick, he fumed. How much did the kid know?
He pushed his plate out of the way and leaned into the table. His voice calm but dead serious. “Are you honestly interested in this stuff or are you just being precocious? Because if you are serious, you need to know that it comes with a price. Mucking about with this shite will come back to bite you in the arse in a way you will never expect.”
The straw slipped out of her teeth. “Is that what happened to auntie Ellie?”
No sense being twee about it now. “Yes.”
Hannah propped her elbows on the table and lowered her voice to match his, even though they had the pub to themselves. “I was just curious about it. It seems all wicked and glamorous, you know? But honestly, I tried reading those books but they bored me to tears. All flowery nonsense, really.”
His brow unstitched, crisis averted. He badly wanted a cigarette right now. “Good. Where’d you get those shitty books from anyway?”
“Shop, up the high street. You know the one with the dragon in the window? The bloke in there is always going on about magic and mystical power. Talking like he knows all these secrets and stuff. He gave ‘em to me. Gave books to all of us.”
“Us?”
“The other girls. Mates. We go there after school sometimes, hang out. The creepy bloke tries flirting with us, giving us books and hinting that they have all this secret knowledge and whatnot. He even asked Charlene out for coffee.”
A new crisis brewing up. Not one he was expecting. “Charlene’s your age?”
“Fourteen.”
Same difference. “What’s this tosser’s name?”
“Stefan.”
An ember of hatred was already stoking in Gantry’s heart for this Stefan fellow but it presented itself outwardly in a leering grin. He tossed a few notes on the table to cover the bill and fetched his coat.
“Time to go,” he said. “Show me this shop on the way home, yeah?”
Chapter 10
“SO WHAT KIND of ghost was it?” Kaitlin asked. “Man or woman?”
“I couldn’t tell. It burst into a million creepy doll heads at one point,” Billie replied.
Tuesday afternoon, the two of them making their way up James Street to Jen’s shop. The low winter sun flaring gold in the windows on their left, the day bright but cold. Still unnerved from the presence she had encountered in Robin’s house, Billie wanted to talk it through with Kaitlin.
“Seeing a hundred doll heads would have sent me running out the door.” Kaitlin’s breath vapoured in the air as she spoke. “So you couldn’t get a read on this thing?”
“Nothing. It was so bizarre. I thought it was an echo at first, then I thought it was a transient. It was definitely volatile.”
Kaitlin turned to look at Billie. “Hold on. Echo? Transient?”
“Just nicknames I made up,” Billie said. “To identify the different kinds of dead.”
Intrigued, Kaitlin huddled closer as they walked. “Go on.”
“It’s silly, really. An echo isn’t a ghost at all, just residual energy trapped in a certain place. A transient is a lost soul. Not tied to anything, just drifting. The dangerous ones, the ones that lash out physically? They’re volatiles.”
“So what do you call Half-Boy?”
Billie shrugged apologetically. “Dunno. I don’t know what he is.”
Kaitlin snapped her fingers. “I know. He’s a Casper!”
“Yeah, clever.” Billie kept walking. “The thing is, aside from being a volatile, I don’t know what this thing is that’s haunting Robin’s family. It kept presenting itself as something else, like it was masking itself.”
“But it’s dangerous?”
“It is,” Billie confirmed, but without much conviction. “But it didn’t feel malignant. Just angry. If that makes any sense.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Research the property. If I can identify who it was, maybe I can get the spirit to cross over. Or at least move on, so that poor family can live in peace.”
Kaitlin responded with a smirk. That was all.
“What are you grinning about?” Billie prodded.
“I just like you using your super powers for good. Helping people and stuff.”
They crossed Wilson Street, trying not to slip on the patches of ice glazing the sidewalk.
“Ooh, I’ve been doing some digging into the psychic thing,” Kaitlin announced. She slipped her gloved hand through Billie’s elbow and they carried on,
navigating the icy path. “The history of it and stuff.”
Billie wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear what her friend had unearthed. “Anything good?”
“There isn’t a lot of research on psychics. Which isn’t surprising, considering the nature of it.”
“What do you mean? No one’s studied it before?”
“It’s considered women’s work,” Kaitlin said. “So, of course there hasn’t been much study on it.”
Billie fixed a sly glance at her friend. “Not worth the time?”
“Yep. But first, there’s a distinction to be made with the terminology. It’s usually lumped together under psychic but what you are is a medium.”
“Mediums talk to the dead?” Billie ventured.
“Exactly. They basically channel something from the other side through some means. Psychics are more like seers. They divine the future. Either through the tarot or tea leaves or other means, they foretell what’s to come.”
Approaching another span of ice, they skated gingerly over the slippery sheen, keeping one another upright.
“Now, divination,” Kaitlin went on, “is universal. Every culture in every part of the world has its means of trying to see into the future. In a way, it’s not that different from religion. Trying to make sense of the world around you. To gain insight, to find meaning.”
Billie slowed her pace, mulling on the idea. “Right. And that persists today?”
“It’s never gone away. In fact, it’s even more prevalent now. It’s no accident that every newspaper in the world has a horoscope section.” Kaitlin gave her friend’s arm a tug as she said this. “So it’s not just me with my zodiac obsession.”
“And what about the whole female angle? Is that just chalked up to women being intuitive?”
“Hugely,” Kaitlin said. “The first psychic was a woman. Her name was Cassandra.”
The name rang a bell but its peel was hazy to Billie. Unable to recall the details. “Cassandra?”
