“Yeah, that sucks.” He gestured out the window to the yellow Porsche Cayman. “That’s why I buy stuff, you know. Because I get bored.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I kinda figured that.”
“It works for a while but then I get bored of whatever it was I bought. Like, the cars are fun and all, but eventually that Porsche will just join the others in the garage.”
“You need to get a hobby,” I told him. “Like Michael’s orchids.”
Leon shrugged. “Playing around with computers was my hobby until I started making money at it. Then, I worked for so many hours on the apps that eventually I got sick of it. But I can’t just sit around on my ass all day either. I have to be doing something. You have the perfect job. It’s always different and exciting.”
“It isn’t all about sticking swords into monsters and demons,” I said. “There’s research and paperwork too.”
He looked unconvinced. “Every time I see you, you’re slaying something with that kickass sword. That’s why I said you’re like a modern-day knight. You’re slaying dragons most of the time.”
I shrugged. Maybe he was right. Besides, Felicity handled most of the paperwork because she enjoyed it. That left me to do the physical work. The perfect team.
The waitress brought our burgers and Cokes to the table and set them in front of us. “Anything else you need, just let me know,” she said with a smile before heading over to serve a family at a nearby table.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it while I took a bite of the juicy burger. As usual, it melted in my mouth and flooded my taste buds with delicious flavor.
“Best burger around,” Leon said.
I nodded and fished my phone from my pocket. The screen displayed the name Jim Walker.
I hadn’t heard from Jim in maybe six months. He was the investigator I’d worked with in Canada while trying to log my year’s worth of field experience and become a fully-fledged investigator.
Jim had been a great mentor and, as well as teaching me the business of investigating the preternatural, he had also taught me some nature spells that had been passed down by his First Nations ancestors. I’d used one of those spells at Dearmont Lake when I’d asked the trees to reveal the details of Deirdre Summers’ death.
I answered the call. “Hey, Jim.”
“Hey, Alec. How’s it going in the Windy City?”
“I’m not in Chicago anymore,” I said. “I got reassigned to a little place in Maine.”
“What? How did that happen?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Okay, no need to go into it right now. I was wondering if you’d like to come up north for a few days? I’d sure like to see you.”
“You have a problem?” I asked.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not really sure. It’s a mystery. There have been some weird murders. The police don’t know what’s happening and, frankly, neither do I. My crystals aren’t detecting any magic at the crime scenes but there’s something strange going on. So I thought I’d call you. Maybe a fresh pair of eyes would be good. You’ve worked this area before and it’s too long since we’ve seen each other. We can have a few beers and you can tell me that long story.”
“Sounds good, Jim. I’ll arrange a flight to Toronto. It’ll probably be tomorrow.”
“That soon?” he asked, surprise in his voice. “I thought you’d have to close your current cases first. I wasn’t expecting you until sometime next week.”
“My schedule is clear right now,” I said.
“The town is that small?”
“Yeah, you could say that. So, tell me about the murders.”
Leon leaned forward over the table. “If it’s a new case, I want to help.”
“Who’s that?” Jim asked.
“Someone I’ve been working with.”
“Is he any good?”
I thought of Leon standing over the pile of ash that had once been a demon. “Yeah, he’s good.”
Leon beamed.
“Bring him along, if you want,” Jim said.
“I’ll think about it. So…the murders?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll let you see for yourself when you get here.”
“Okay,” I said, intrigued. “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.” I ended the call and went back to eating my burger.
Leon looked like he was about to burst with excitement. “Well? Who was that? Do we have another case?”
“I have another case,” I said.
“But you’re taking me along, right?”
I sighed. Leon was my friend and I didn’t want to put him in any danger, even though I’d done so on numerous occasions already. “It doesn’t sound exciting enough for you,” I said. “It’s a murder investigation.”
He looked at me closely to see if I was joking. “Are you kidding? Dude, I’ve seen every episode of C.S.I. I love murder investigations.” Then he narrowed his eyes. “Wait a minute, this can’t be a normal murder case or the police would be handling it. There has to be something weird about it for you to get involved.”
“Yeah, there is.”
He leaned forward and looked around the diner as if we might be being watched. “What is it?” he whispered conspiratorially. “Demons? Vampires?”
“I gave no idea,” I said, taking another bite of my burger. “My friend Jim is going to tell me when I get there.”
Leon frowned. “You mean he’s going to tell us when we get there, right?”
I considered it while I ate more of the burger. I didn’t mind taking Leon on the case just as long as the something weird didn’t turn into something dangerous. I didn’t want to be responsible for putting him in harm’s way. But who was I kidding? I’d put Leon in danger on more than one occasion and he’d come through each time. I was doing him a disservice by thinking he couldn’t handle himself.
Besides, the case Jim was talking about didn’t sound too risky. Investigating a few murders—weird or not—wasn’t as dangerous as fighting the monster we’d faced at the lake.
“You’re really bored, aren’t you?” I asked Leon.
He nodded. “I don’t like summer, man. My friends have a few parties and things but it just isn’t exciting. So I spend most of my time locked away, playing games. I hardly ever see the sun. If I were a white guy, I’d be pasty right now. You should take me with you for the sake of my health, if nothing else. I need to be outdoors.”
I grinned. “Okay, you’re in. I can’t let you waste away in front of your computer. I just hope you can handle the wilderness.”
“The wilderness? Where are we going?”
I finished my burger and pushed the plate away. “We’re going to Canada.”
Chapter 2
At 4:50 p.m. the following day, Leon and I were in Huntsville, Ontario, both of us leaning on the dark blue Ford Explorer I’d rented. The Explorer was parked on Main Street, right outside the door of Jim’s office. The door was locked, so Leon and I were just hanging around, waiting.
It had been a long day, beginning with a 6:00 a.m. flight from Bangor, and I was tired. Standing with my hands in my pockets, I stared up at the sky, which was bright and cloudless. Leon was playing with his phone, concentrating on the screen.
“I thought you wanted to get away from all that?” I said.
“Huh?” He looked up at me.
I nodded at his phone. “I thought you wanted to escape the machines and get back to nature?”
“No, I never said that. I said I needed to get outdoors.” He gestured at the street. “As you can see, I’m outdoors.”
“Well, you should probably make the most of your phone now because there might not be any coverage where we’re going.”
He looked shocked. “What? When you told me we were coming to Canada, you didn’t mention we were leaving civilization behind.”
“All I’m saying is that a lot of Jim’s work is done in Algonquin Park. There’s cell coverage along th
e highway that runs through the park but there isn’t any in the backcountry. If we need to spend time in the places away from the main road, your phone won’t work there.”
He sighed. “How big is this park anyway?”
“Three thousand square miles of lakes and forest. It’s larger than Delaware.”
Leon raised his eyebrows. “How are we supposed to find a monster in all that? And how do we even know what we’re looking for?”
“There are usually things called clues,” I said sarcastically.
He shot me a look that told me to stop being a smartass.
“Besides, Jim is an expert tracker,” I told him. “He taught me a few things too.”
“So this guy was, like, your mentor or something?”
“Exactly. When I came to work with Jim, everything I knew about being an investigator was purely academic. The only preternatural creatures I’d seen were in the classroom, in photos and videos. Working with Jim brought all that learning into practice. It all became real. And I loved it. Jim taught me the little tricks and tips he’d picked up from working in the field for years.”
“So he’s an old dude,” Leon said.
“Hey, I’m not old,” came a voice from the street. A black Jeep Renegade had stopped on the road and Jim Walker was leaning out of the open driver’s window, a grin on his face.
He didn’t look any older than he had the last time I’d seen him. His dark brown eyes shone with energy, and his face, framed by long straight black hair, was well-defined with strong cheekbones and chin. Jim was in his fifties but I knew he could outrun and outfight men half his age.
Oblivious to the traffic stopped behind his Jeep, Jim got out and came over to me, arms wide. He wore boots, blue jeans, and a black T-shirt that was tight on his heavily-muscled frame and showed off the tribal tattoos on his huge arms. Jim had added them to his Society tattoos and was covered in ink from the base of his neck to his ankles.
He caught me in a hug that could crush a grizzly. “Alec, it’s good to see you.”
“You too, Jim,” I managed, despite the air being squeezed from my lungs. “This is Leon Smith, a friend of mine.”
“And now mine,” Jim said, pumping Leon’s hand. When he released it, Leon rubbed his fingers gingerly.
Jim went back to the Renegade. “Come on, there’s been another murder. The police called me a few moments ago.”
“Is it in the park?” I asked, opening the Explorer.
Jim got into his vehicle and nodded. “Yeah, the park. That’s where it’s all happening.”
Leon got into the passenger seat, still rubbing his hand. I turned to him and smiled. “We’re going to the park.”
“Yeah, so I hear.” He opened the Explorer’s glove compartment, sighed, and threw his phone into it.
Chapter 3
I followed Jim out of Huntsville and along Highway 60. When we got to Algonquin’s West Gate, I had to pay to get a permit to enter the park. The girl who sold it to me said that if I was just driving through and didn’t intend to stop anywhere in the park, I didn’t need it. I told her that I did indeed intend to stop but didn’t mention I would be to examining a murder scene.
With the permit sitting on the Explorer’s dash, I followed Jim’s Jeep along the highway for maybe twenty miles until he pulled into a parking area at the side of road. I did the same and cut the engine. There were two black-and-white police cruisers parked here, as well as a dark green Chevy Tahoe and a blue Honda Civic. There were no police officers in sight.
Leon and I got out of the Explorer and Jim came over to us. “The crime scene is a couple of miles along this trail,” he said, pointing at a dirt trail that led into the trees. “It was discovered by a hiker a couple of hours ago.”
“What equipment do we need?” I asked.
“It’s all in here.” He showed me a small black backpack. “Crystal shards and faerie stones. But like I told you before, I’m not detecting magic at any of these scenes.”
We set off into the woods. The warm evening air swarmed with insects that bothered Leon and me but seemed to leave Jim alone. He watched as we swatted at the bugs that attacked us, and chuckled. “You guys need to learn that bug repellent is your friend.”
“I didn’t realize we’d be coming out into the woods so soon,” I said, waving my hand at a mosquito that buzzed near my ear.
“Do the police call you every time they get a murder?” Leon asked Jim.
“Only when there’s something they can’t explain,” Jim said. “They got me to consult on this case when they found the first body a couple of weeks ago. A second body turned up a week later and the police decided to keep me on the case.”
“What’s so strange about the bodies?” I asked, wishing that my relationship with the police in Dearmont could be as good as Jim’s was with the Ontario Provincial Police. Instead of being hated by local law enforcement, Jim was respected and was called on whenever a non-mundane perspective could help solve a case. And, as more cases had been solved with Jim’s help, his reputation as a valuable asset to the O.P.P. had grown.
“It’s always a lone victim and the attacks happen at night. The bodies are torn up and have been fed on,” Jim said. “But the tears and bite marks don’t match any known animal.”
“Werewolves?” I asked.
Jim shook his head. “When I say any known animal, I’m including all the ones known to me as well as the police. I did some research on the Society database but there’s a lot of information on there regarding creatures that tear their victims apart. I can’t narrow it down.”
“It’s a shame we don’t have Felicity here,” I said. “She’s really good at this kind of thing.”
“Who’s Felicity?” Jim asked.
“My assistant.”
“Assistant? You’re really coming up in the world, my friend. The only assistant I ever had was you and you weren’t really good at anything.” He grinned.
“Really?” I said. “I seem to remember saving your ass from a wendigo that was about to make you its lunch.”
He shrugged. “I might have gotten away before it had a chance to chow down on me.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” I said to Leon, “Jim might look big and strong but he’d been pumped so full of wendigo poison that I had to drag him out of the woods.”
“It wasn’t far,” Jim said.
“At least three miles,” I told Leon.
Leon laughed. “Sounds like you two had some good times.”
Jim clapped him on the shoulder. “We did, but don’t believe anything Alec tells you about them. He’ll try to make it sound like he was the hero but I was protecting him every step of the way.”
“So you were protecting me when we went into that nest of vampires in North Bay and you were knocked unconscious the minute we got through the door?” I said to Leon, “I had to kill them all myself and then drag Jim back to the car.”
Jim sighed. “You’re giving Leon the wrong idea. It sounds like you spent all your time dragging me around.”
I thought for a moment. “Oh, and there was that time we faced a pack of werewolves—”
“Don’t listen to him, Leon,” Jim said, cutting me off. “He’s skipping over all the times I saved his ass. There are so many of those, I don’t even know where to begin.”
I laughed. “Okay, Jim, let’s concede that we saved each other more times that we can remember.”
“You guys have the best job in the world,” Leon said.
“It isn’t all fun and games,” Jim said, his tone growing more serious. “We look back at those moments and laugh but only because to take it seriously would lead to a mental breakdown. People get hurt and killed by the monsters we hunt. Sometimes, we have to face things we’d rather not see. Laugher is the only way to make the mental scars a little less deep.”
“Case in point,” I said, pointing to where four police officers were searching the ground and undergrowth around the trail. There was a purple-and-whit
e tent in a small clearing. It had been ripped apart, the fabric hanging raggedly from the metal frame like flesh torn from bone.
The four police officers—three men and a woman—turned to us as we approached. Jim waved and asked, “Same as last time?”
“Looks like it,” the female police officer said. “The body—what’s left of it—is in the tent.”
“Where are Frasier and Girard?” Jim asked.
She pointed at the trees beyond the tent. “Over there, searching for clues.”
“Mind if we take a look at the body?”
She looked at Leon and me before shrugging. “Sure.”
We followed Jim to the tent. The smell of dead flesh hung in the warm summer air. The body lying inside the ruined tent was male, maybe in his late twenties, with messy dark hair and a beard. He was lying on his back and was naked except for a pair of blue boxers. His chest had been ripped open, the ribs parted to allow access to the internal organs.
“Same as the others,” Jim said. “When the M.E. examines the body, she’ll find that most of his organs are gone.”
“That’s gross, man,” Leon said. He wasn’t looking at the body; he was staring at the fat flies buzzing around it and crawling over the remnants of the tent.
“I don’t think it was a lone victim this time,” I said. “There were two people in here.” The shredded remains of a dark blue sleeping bag lay around the body and still covered the lower parts of his legs. A dark green sleeping bag was next to him. The green bag was intact and had been unzipped.
I looked at the torn pieces of tent lying around until I found the tent’s door flap. Like the green sleeping bag, it was unzipped. “Looks like the second person fled the tent while this guy was being torn apart.”
“It was a woman,” Jim said, pointing to a jumble of female clothing in one corner of the tent.
I looked at the dense forest around us. “So where is she?”
Jim inspected the grass and natural debris on the ground. He pointed along the trail. “She went that way.”
“She was running, so she should be easy enough to track,” I said.
Dead Ground (Harbinger P.I. Book 4) Page 2
