As the Worm Turns

by Matthew Quinn Martin

  The hands came up first. Dirty fingers poked from torn wool gloves. The rest followed, an old man in an army jacket, knit cap pulled down over ratty dreads, and a beard that forked like the devil’s tongue. “Don’t shoot.”

  Jack holstered his pistol. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Father always lets us stay,” the man answered as he scooted over to the aisle.

  “It’s not the priest you have to worry about.”

  The man narrowed his gaze at Jack. “They never had guards here before.”

  “They never needed one before.” Jack moved to pass, but the man blocked his way.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m the one sent to clean up.”

  “The one . . . the one sent . . . the one sent . . .” the old man mumbled, repeating the phrase like a mantra. Jack took another step and again was blocked. “Wait, let me ask you a question.”

  “I don’t have time for your questions.”

  “Just one.” The man fidgeted, patting his pockets as if he were looking for some lost object. “Just the one, and then you can go.”

  Jack eased back on his heels. Why not? Street people were usually the first targets. The enemy came at night, feasting on the forgotten. The pattern had repeated in town after town after town. It was a recent rash of killings that had drawn him to New Harbor in the first place. And if it had been church policy to allow the homeless to bunk down for the night, why was only this one man here? Especially when the New England air bit cold and hard. “Ask your question.”

  The man rubbed his hands together. “Tell me . . . you think it was tough? For Him?”

  “For who?”

  “For Him.” The man pointed one gnarled finger at the mammoth crucifix hanging above them. “You think it was tough for Him when He rose? Was it just like waking up? Did He drop that shroud on the tomb floor and walk away whistling? Or . . .” The man leaned in close, his voice all but a whisper. “Or do you think it was a nightmare? Clawing His way back from hell, tearing through the earth for days, and heaving back that stone with His own nail-scarred hands?”

  “What do I think?” Jack didn’t have time for this nonsense. “I don’t know.”

  “No.” The man’s rheumy eyes looked deep into Jack’s, so deep he felt a strange fear welling. “No, no, you don’t. But you will. Mark my words. You will.” A reverence spread across the man’s face so ecstatic it almost lit up the whole church. “You’re the One.”

  “The one?”

  “The One sent to destroy the Night Angel.”

  Night Angel. That was new. Closer to the truth, however, than the word all the old legends used: vampire. The man had only corroborated what Jack already knew. His enemy was here in New Harbor, and if he didn’t take it out soon, this man smiling at him like a holy fool might be its next meal.

  “You’re the One,” he repeated, his voice pure joy.

  “You’ve got the wrong man.” Jack pushed past him and headed for the door. He believed in chosen one fantasies about as much as he believed in vampires. Just a feeble mental construct to tame the real terrors, the ones that were still out there.

  “Wait,” the man called out, running after him. “I can help you.” But the words only echoed in the vaulting darkness.

  Thirteen

  Each crisp photocopy had a picture of Zoë on it, the word “MISSING” in big block letters as a banner line. Beth’s staple hammer whistled through the air, every strike resounding with a triumphant clank click as she stalked the streets of New Harbor tacking up flier after flier, sticking them to any surface flat enough.

  Beth looked up. The sky was the color of dirty dishwater. Soon dusk would surrender to night. Streets that seemed almost quaint in daylight—turn-of-the-last-century trolley tracks still embedded among the cobblestones—would transform into a playland for junkies and roughnecks. Beth’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Her heart thumped at the thought that it might be Zoë. But it was only Ryan, again. She tucked the phone away unanswered. She’d told him where she was going to be, even offered to let him help.

  At first, he’d humored her, patronized her with “If that makes you feel better.” By the third phone call, she could hear the pique mounting in his voice as he tossed out reasons for her to quit. “It’s gonna get dark soon . . . I made us dinner reservations . . . Are you sure posting fliers is even allowed?” By his fifth call, she’d given up arguing. And despite the mounting fatigue, the aching wrists, and the stubbed thumbs, a call from Zoë was the only thing that would get her to quit now. If Ryan knew her as well as he claimed, he’d know that, too.

  He could have shown a little more concern. A touch would have been enough. He could have lied, backpedaled, used some of the golden tones he saved for courtrooms and clients on her. But he didn’t. All he did was try to get her to give up. And she was fairly sure she knew why. He viewed Zoë as a relic of her rough-and-tumble Docklands youth, her scrappy teen years, her wild club days. All the stuff he delighted in making her feel ashamed of.

  Maybe Ryan would never understand, but Zoë Rakoczy had been the one constant in Beth Becker’s life. From Double Dutch on cracked playground blacktop, through double dates at the multiplex, to double shots downed at Axis, Zoë had been there. She’d been family. Certainly more family than Beth had ever known growing up with her mother’s constantly revolving cast of dirtbag boyfriends and a father she only ever knew as a faded photograph.

  Beth peeked into her shoulder bag. She’d gotten through about three-quarters of the thousand fliers she’d had printed up, and she’d be damned if she quit before that bag was dead empty. She’d started at the last place Zoë had been seen—the Strip—and radiated out from there. So far, she’d hit the town green, the upscale and University-friendly shopping section, and the downscale one downtown that only townies ventured into. She’d even taken a quick spin through the outskirts of Grey Hill and the Docklands. She’d plastered the courthouse and the coffee house, the post office and the Planned Parenthood. She’d tacked fliers up on telephone poles, on trash barrels, on plywood construction barricades, on everything staple-worthy.

  All that remained now was the University. Beth calmly followed in the wake of a gaggle of students as they unlocked and entered a gated quad. Inside, she headed for one of the many neat and tidy outdoor bulletin boards. She’d held off papering the campus until dark, not terribly keen on racking up a ticket from University cops for “vandalizing” school property.

  She moved quickly from quad to quad, careful to keep from making eye contact, until finally, she pulled out her last flier and tacked it to a tree on the far side of the University. The ancient elm stood guard in front of a building that had given Beth the chills her whole life.

  There was no sign posted on the monolithic brass door of the minatory mausoleum, nothing to mark it as special except a pair of stone and iron pillars, twin axes, each with a serpent constricting the shaft, head rising in triumph over the blade. Caduceus and fasces both, they promised both life and the power over it. The symbol of the Order of Sormen. If only a fraction of the gossip about what took place behind its ruddy granite walls was true, it would be more than enough to question who was really running things in America and across the globe.

  Beth checked the time—almost midnight—time to finally give in to exhaustion and start for home. Only one more day, and the police would officially list Zoë as a missing person. She prayed to any god that might have his cosmic antenna tuned to prayers of the less-than-faithful that it wouldn’t come to that.

  As she rounded a corner, she spotted a man staring at one of her fliers. His army coat might have been green at one point but was now soiled and mottled into a color that defied her powers of description. Matted, graying dreads poked from beneath his tattered watch cap. The soles of his shoes were held on with duct tape and rubber bands. He scrutinized the posting, leaning in close and scratchin
g his beard as Beth watched unseen. Did he know something about what might have happened to Zoë, or was he just staring at a picture of a pretty girl?

  The man tugged a flat plastic bottle from his jacket and took a deep pull, his eyes never leaving the flier. Beth steeled her nerves to go over to him, but he suddenly tore the poster down and shoved it inside his jacket. Then he pulled out a can of spray paint and quickly scribbled something on the wall. Beth was unable to see what it was until after the man had shuffled off into the night. But the words were ones she’d seen scrawled all over New Harbor.

  Beware the Night Angel.

  Fourteen

  Jack pushed back from the electron microscope. The remains of his meal, a half-eaten Styrofoam cup of instant oatmeal, long since gone cold and lumpy, sat forgotten next to the rest of the specimens.

  The dog whined softly. Jack looked down to see him panting with a hungry smile. He’d named the dog Blood. Part joke, part because the dog looked like the one in a movie he’d remembered from his daylight life. Giving the dog a name was a mistake he’d probably regret, but it wouldn’t have been the first. Jack set the oatmeal down on the van floor without a word. The dog nuzzled Jack’s hand for a moment before digging in.

  Back at the microscope, still nothing. He was no closer to cracking this nut than he had been for the past decade. He wasn’t even sure he’d extracted the right compounds from the sample he’d pulled from that grate. The chemical makeup of those things was astounding in its complexity. Given their rapid decomposition, flesh turning corrosive almost instantly after death, it was little wonder they’d evaded detection for so long. Nothing left for anyone to find, no corpses, no evidence, no proof. Just the stuff of nightmares.

  More than anything, Jack had to find a way to make them known for what they were. Not seen in hallucinatory fits and starts like with the snap vials. Not crusted over with centuries of folklore and Hollywood bullshit. Otherwise, he could hunt them down, drag them howling into the light, stake them to the ground, set them on fire, send heads rolling from coast to coast—do it until he dropped dead—and he wouldn’t even make a dent. Not in the long run.

  There would always be more.

  Jack pressed against the scope’s eye cup. Under his gaze, the sample degenerated. Even with the fixative he’d applied, the cellular structure was just too delicate to withstand much prodding. He squirted bleach over what wasn’t to be archived, destroying all organic matter, then trashed the slides. It was time to move on. There were other tasks to fulfill, other work to be done. It was the work that kept Jack going, day after endless day, night after long, lonely night. The work . . . and the hunt.

  Jack stepped from the van, sucking in a lungful of alkaline air. He’d moved base camp to a deserted section of the Docklands. Less than six blocks from the posh quads of the University, it might as well have been a different world. One of frost-heaved sidewalks, piss-reeking alleys, abandoned gun factories, and garbage-strewn vacant lots. A world that suited Jack Jackson just fine, one where he’d be free from any prying eyes.

  He hefted the auto-snare prototype in one hand as he looked to the crumbling department-store mannequin he’d found yesterday and set up for this test. The auto-snare was something he’d been working on for close combat or for times when carrying a pistol would arouse suspicion. But it needed to be perfect. He’d gone into the field with underengineered equipment before and nearly paid for such recklessness with his life.

  Blood pulled up close, heeled at attention. After a few steady meals, the dog seemed to be less fixated on food and more on him. Perhaps what he was hungry for now was affection.

  Jack focused on work. He ran a thumb along the inside of the auto-snare’s cable, a woven titanium filament encrusted with industrial diamond grit. He gripped the spring box gingerly in one hand, knowing how easily the device could take the other clean off at the wrist.

  Jack coiled the wire the same way it would eventually nest in his tactical belt. Then, after slipping one finger into the trigger ring, he cleared his mind and lobbed for the target. The instant it left his palm, the cable snapped out in a clean loop, just as he’d engineered it to do. It sailed through the air with a whisper and landed around the mannequin’s neck. The trigger line glistened in the night for an instant before Jack gave it a quick jerk. The pin popped with a soft ping. Tungsten spring engaged, the loop grew tight.

  A cloud of urethane dust rose from the mannequin’s neck as the head fell to the ground with a dry thud. It worked. Jack notched another inch gained against them.

  Blood growled. The dog’s ears were back and his hackles were raised as he stared into the darkness. “What is it?” Blood pawed the dirt, then padded off. Jack followed. Not a sound betrayed either of them as they made their way to the end of the abandoned lot. There, he watched the dog slip through a tear in the wire fence and disappear into a sloping ditch. He sprinted to catch up, pushing through the fence and sliding down the gravel embankment until he and the dog faced the opening to a drainage culvert.

  The pipe’s slanted mouth was blocked by shafts of rebar. Jack gave it a wide berth nonetheless. Blood lowered his head, baring his teeth with a throaty growl. “Settle.” Jack pulled out a flashlight with one hand and his pistol with the other. He crossed both at the wrist, finger tight on the trigger, light still off. If one of them was inside, it wouldn’t do to draw its attention until he had it dead in his sights.

  Jack knelt down, the barrel of his gun inches from the blackness that lay behind those bars. The first shot would be the one that counted. If it didn’t find its mark, he might not get a second. He tightened his grip, steadied his hand, held his breath—and clicked on the light.

  Deep in the dark recesses, a pair of eyes caught the light and mirrored it back. He had leveled the gun, almost ready to fire, when his light rebounded of a second set of eyes. Then a third.

  Jack shot wild.

  He wheeled back, body pressed hard against the side of the culvert, gun drawn close to his chest as he tried to calm his rapid breathing. His mouth went as dry as sun-baked beach sand. Those things were solo predators. He could count on one scarred hand the number of times he’d gone up against a pair. But even then, they had hunted far apart. He’d never spotted two within so much as a mile of each other, and never three. Jack calmed his mind. He drew his second pistol, then whipped around and pointed both barrels down the pipe. But the eyes were gone.

  Fifteen

  One of New Harbor’s notorious autumn fogs had rolled in, covering the Docklands like a roll of cotton batting. White wisps slithered across the pavement, pooling around Beth’s feet. She shrugged deeper into her pea coat, trying to ward off the chill air that tasted of briny decay. She’d almost forgotten how dark this section of town could get. More than half the street lamps were burned out. Those that still worked spit out a mingy orange light through dirt-caked lenses.

  Beth looked around. The past decade had not been kind to most of New Harbor, but it had been absolutely sadistic to the Docklands. Across the street stood an abandoned playground, nothing remaining but swing-set skeletons and concrete yokes that had once held up benches. Hard to imagine any children playing there now, as Beth had when she was a girl. The housing project she’d grown up in sat not half a mile away, a crack den last she’d checked.

  Her quest for the man who’d torn down her flier and replaced it with that bit of cryptic graffiti had proved as fruitless as her search for Zoë. In fact, all of downtown seemed conspicuously free of its ever-present homeless population. Eventually, she’d learned that most of them had moved away from the Strip and other prime panhandling spots and hunkered down here, at Fort Red Rock, a Revolution-era relic. Something had them scared, it seemed.

  Beth hopped over a slack chain more rust than steel, stepping from cracked concrete to soft earth as she entered the fort’s grounds. She took a quick glance at her cell phone. No bars. She was more on her own
than ever. She scanned the area. Not a single soul wandered about the crumbling bombproof shelters and turf-tufted powder magazines. On a cement pillar, she spied a tarnished brass plaque commemorating America’s bicentennial. Across it had been sprayed Beware the Night Angel in orange paint.

  Beth wasn’t quite sure what she’d expected to find down here. A burning oil drum with toothless hobos standing around it, warming their grubby hands as they ate beans out of tin cans? Junkies slinging skag and sharing needles? Something else? Something worse? Maybe they were hiding. Maybe this would turn out to be nothing but a snipe hunt. Beth squinted into the murk. In the distance, she spotted what could have been a man watching her through the fog, or it could just as easily have been a shrub. “Hello?” she called out.

  Only her echo replied.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” a ragged voice came from behind her. “Keep it down.”

  She turned to face a man. He was stooped with age, his nose a riot of broken capillaries, his hair and beard a tangled mat of gray Brillo, and he stank as if he’d washed up on the battlements during low tide. “Sorry,” she offered.

  “What’re you doing out here, miss?” The man wobbled from one foot to the other. “No place for a lady, not at night.”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Ain’t got no drugs.” He backed away, hands up and waving. “Don’t do no drugs. You a cop?”

  “No. Not like that. I’m looking for the man who’s been going around spray-painting those messages. You know, ‘Beware the Night Angel’?”

  The man narrowed his bloodshot eyes at her. A new firmness surged through him, and he stood taller than seemed possible just a moment before. “Thought you said you weren’t a cop?”

  “I’m not.”

  “What you want with the prophet, then?”