by James Hunter
The music began in earnest, led by the pastor, who sang with a silver tongue.
The congregation sang two upbeat contemporary songs, an ol’ timey hymn called “How Can We be Silent?”, and a slow contemporary piece. Levi sang along by rote, his voice graceless and uneven. Usually, this was his favorite part of the service, but today his heart wasn’t in it. His heart was with the note in his pocket.
Pastor Steve preached a good sermon on vengeance and the need for forgiveness, but the words washed through Levi like grain shifting through a sieve. He wanted to be present, to “let his baggage go” as the pastor admonished, but the letter weighed a thousand pounds in his pocket, and the girl from the altar kept stealing, uninvited, into his mind. Her brown eyes and cotton-candy hair. The clean gash running up her belly, sewn back together with rough surgical sutures. She is the first viable subject in thirty years, the note said.
A mystery, terrible and dark. He needed to see her again. To understand what the Kobocks had been up to down there. What had they done to her and to what end? He also wanted to know more about that altar.
Church let out at a quarter of noon.
Pastor Steve stopped the Mudman at the door. The preacher was a tall man, spare in the middle, and as smooth faced as a high schooler—he certainly didn’t look like his thirty summers. But he was wise and good beyond his age and possessed an open, infectious smile. Levi grinned in spite of himself and his hurry. Normally getting on with people was a challenge, a constant battle not to be himself, but with Steve, genuine smiles, a quick laugh, and a light heart were easy to come by. He was a delightful man, with a sweet family—everything Levi could ever hope to aspire to.
“Levi, great to see you. Taking off so soon? We’re doing potluck today. Lots of good eats downstairs.” He leaned in and cocked an eyebrow. “Pamela made a cake,” he confided conspiratorially. “Chocolate with buttercream frosting. Someone’s gonna have to help me eat it, or I’ll put it all away and it’ll go right to my gut.” He patted his stomach and offered Levi a sly wink.
“I know it, Pastor,” Levi said, bowing his head as if contrite. “I’m sorry to cut and run, but I’ve got a friend in the hospital. Promised to go visit her this afternoon.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” he replied. “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking? Is she going to be okay?”
Levi froze, the rusty cogs in his head cranking away for an answer. He’d crafted his get-away lie while still in the pews, but he hadn’t expected follow-up questions.
“Are you okay, Levi?” Steve asked, his brow furrowed in concern.
“Yeah, sorry. My brain just locked up on me for a moment there,” Levi replied at last.
“So, your friend,” Steve prompted.
“Right, my friend.” He faltered again, though only for a short time. Small, simple lies were always the best. And the closer to the truth, the better—easier to remember that way. “I think she’ll be all right. She had”—short pause—“a bad car accident,” he finished. “Really shook her up. But hopefully things’ll turn around. We’ll see, though.”
“Would you mind if I added her to the prayer list?” he asked.
“Sure,” Levi said. “Her name’s Jess.” It almost certainly wasn’t, but he couldn’t rightly tell the man he didn’t know the name of his “friend.” As for the prayer list … it certainly wouldn’t hurt to pray for her. Most days, Levi had his doubts about prayer. He knew God was real. Much of his birth was shrouded in mystery, but he knew the High Magic of Kabbalah had created him, and that was proof enough. Did God listen to the cries of hapless humans, though? Maybe, but he wasn’t sold.
As Levi was wont to say, pray for your daily bread, but keep your hand to the plow while you do it.
“Alright, we’ll see you later.” The pastor gave him a final wave as Levi made for the door.
The Mudman left the building and weaved through the parking lot, the crisp fall air washing over his skin. He fished out his key fob, unlocked the doors, and slid into his minivan. Though he didn’t have a family, the minivan was an excellent fit: smooth ride, inconspicuous, and great for driving folks to church. And, with large trunk space and fold-down seating, it was also ideal for transporting a body when the need arose.
Levi strived to confine his hunting to the denizens of the Hub, but sometimes he slipped up. It was wrong to kill human beings—creatures made in the image of God, creatures extended grace from the hand of the Creator—of that much he was now certain. Sometimes, though, he couldn’t help it. It was like an itch begging to be scratched. Once in a blue moon, he’d see someone—usually a man, always a murderer—walking the street or lurking in a dark alley, and he couldn’t contain the rage. Just a glance at the black aura was enough to set his ichor to a low boil.
The minivan was perfect for such accidental and unavoidable occasions.
After starting the ignition, he carefully fastened his safety belt and pulled out behind a small line of cars leaving the parking lot: folks who didn’t have the time or inclination for the social niceties of Sunday potluck.
SIX:
Hospital Visits
The drive to University Hospital took ten minutes since traffic was minimal and Levi had the good fortune of catching only a single red light.
There were plenty of spots in the outdoor lot, but Levi instinctively beelined for the parking garage, which would be the safest option. He pulled in and wound his way up, passing open spots on the second, third, and fourth floors, until he finally found a level devoid of cars and video cameras. He pulled the van into a corner space, close to the elevator, but with a thick wall of concrete to his left—concealing him from any upward bound traffic.
He glanced into the rearview mirror, ensuring there were no oncoming cars or peeking pedestrians. Clear left, clear right. Probably being overcautious, but always best to play it safe.
Satisfied that he was alone, he changed. Shifted. His torso elongated, his arms plumped up with thin wiry muscle, and his skin took on a burnt bronze hue. His clothes, likewise, made a transformation of their own: jeans and flannel melted away, coalescing into the black uniform of an Aurora police officer, complete with a badge and a gun. Not that the gun worked. Levi could mimic a great number of things—most people and even a few creatures from Outworld—but complex machinery, like a gun or a cell phone, wasn’t in his repertoire. Props, though, were another thing altogether.
He pulled down his visor and surveyed himself in the flip-open mirror. He turned his head this way and that, then nodded. Good enough. The uniform wasn’t perfect—any old salt sergeant on the force would spot the inconsistencies—but it was good enough to fool a desk nurse. Hopefully.
Levi made his way out of the multi-story garage, across the parking lot, and into the hospital lobby, which had granite floors, beautiful artwork, and lots of greenery. The place looked closer to an upscale resort than a medical facility. The girl was here somewhere—he’d dropped her off here last night at the emergency entrance, then snuck away before he had to deal with any messy questions. Survivors weren’t a normal part of the Mudman’s process, so he’d had to improvise. He wasn’t sure which room she’d be in, though. This whole investigating business was new to him.
He scanned the room and found the information counter, marked out by a brightly lit overhead sign.
A male receptionist, a young guy in his mid-twenties, attended the desk, reading an old sword and sorcery novel while bobbing a foot to some low radio tunes. The Mudman headed over, needlessly running hands over his pants as he rehearsed his lines. He paused a few feet away, took a deep calming breath, then strode forward, donning his most confident and reassuring smile. I can do this, he told himself, wanting to believe the lie.
“Excuse me?” Levi said, his voice smooth and slick as butter in a hot skillet. The attendant looked up, and his eyes lingered on the badge before he stowed the book under the desk and cranked the knob on his radio, silencing the music. His cheeks held a tinge of pin
k and the way he kept looking down, avoiding eye contact, told Levi the kid had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Like reading on shift.
Good, since it meant the attendant would be all the quicker to get rid of him.
“Yes. Um, uh, what can I do for you, officer?”
“Hey, don’t sweat it, kid,” Levi said, shooting for off the cuff and laid-back. “I’m not going to report you to your supervisor. Relax. I’m just looking for a patient—a woman, mid-twenties, checked in here last night around eight thirty. Crazy pink hair, lots of tattoos, someone sliced her up pretty good.”
The kid leaned back in his seat, shook his head, and shrugged. “Sorry,” he replied. “I got on shift this morning. Do you have a name? If you have a name, I can point you to the right room.”
Levi frowned, trying to recall the Old English tattoo he’d seen inked across the top of the girl’s chest. Punk Rock Susie? Punk Rock Sammy? Punk Rock Something, that much he was sure of. Wait, Sally, Punk Rock Sally. “Could be wrong,” he said, “but I think it’s Sally something or other. Look, I’m supposed to be doing some follow-up, but I left her file back in my cruiser. Can’t you help me out here?”
The attendant hesitated. This was irregular, and irregular slowed things down, got people thinking, which, in this case, was a bad thing.
Then the receptionist glanced down at his book and back up to Levi, a measuring look in his hazel eyes.
“Yeah, sure. No problem, officer,” he said after a time. “Let me just get the log.” He pulled out a binder and riffled through the contents, sorted by time and date. Then he moved over to the computer and ran his hands along the keyboard, fingers dancing over the keys while his eyes scanned the screen. Levi was a firm believer that honey worked better than vinegar, at least with humans. With his usual clientele—the monsters in the Hub, say—vinegar, usually in the form of a meat-cleaver-shaped hand, was always the ticket.
“Bingo was her name o,” the desk jockey said. “I’ve got it right here. Name’s Sally Ryder.” His fingers hit a few more computer keys as he searched for whatever information he needed. “And”—he paused, double clicking something with the mouse—“it looks like she’s up on six. Room 615.”
“I sure appreciate it, you’re a lifesaver.” Levi beamed and bumped a fist on the desk.
The attendant shrugged in return. “Hey, like I said, no problem. Have a good day, officer.”
Levi nodded, walked to the elevator bank, and rode up to six.
He gave the attending nurse at the sixth floor desk—a hefty-set black woman with short hair and square glasses—Miss Ryder’s name and room number. She, in turn, gave him a bored once-over and lazily waved him in, pointing down the connecting hallway. Levi walked to the door and knocked softly. No answer.
He knocked harder, more insistently. Still nothing. So, he pushed his way in while a seed of worry tugged at his mind like a fishhook. What if they already got to her? What if I’m was too late? Nonsense, the rational part of his mind insisted, she’s fine. As though to prove he wasn’t worried, Levi carefully shut the door behind him with a soft click, no rush at all. She was in, and likely sleeping, so no point in startling the poor girl.
He made his way down a short hallway and pulled back a sliding curtain concealing the sleeping quarters. He breathed out a sigh of relief. Sally Ryder, with her pink hair and colorful tats, sat propped up in her bed watching some bad movie on a too small TV, a pair of headphones snaking from the hospital bed to her ears.
“Excuse me, Miss Ryder? Sally Ryder?” he asked.
No response. Her eyes were glazed, heavily lidded, puffy, and fixed firmly on the television. The look of a person who wanted very badly to forget about life for a while.
He cleared his throat. Nothing. “Excuse me, Miss Ryder? Sally Ryder?” he said again, this time raising his volume.
She startled, giving a small jump before turning toward him, green eyes tightening at the corners with worry. She was terrified, which explained the purple bags riding below her eyes—not sleeping. Levi thought her fear was well warranted. Her lips curled down when she saw him, disapproval and disdain evident in equal measures on her face. The look of someone with no love for cops. She reached up and pulled the headphones free, then folded her arms across her slight chest.
“Look, I already gave my statement,” she said, voice hard edged. “I’m not interested in talking anymore. I’m not going to recant, if that’s why you’re here. I wasn’t on drugs. I know what happened and what I saw. So please, just leave me alone. I need to rest.”
“Yeah, it sure does look like you could use some rest,” Levi muttered under his breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Levi replied loud enough for her to hear. “I was just saying my name’s Officer Adams, and I’m going to need you to go over the details for me one more time.” Levi pulled over one of the visitor chairs and took a seat. “From the beginning if you wouldn’t mind.”
“But I would mind,” she replied. “I’m not interested in being laughed at again. You guys already have the report, and I’m not changing a word.”
“All the same, miss.” He paused for a beat. “Please, the details could be important. I understand you might not feel like discussing the issue further, but whoever did this to you is still out there. If you don’t help us stop them, what happened to you could easily happen to someone else. I know you don’t want to see that happen. So just once more, from the beginning.” He flashed her his most winsome smile.
She scowled, pulled her arms even more tightly against her body, and looked away, uncooperative. After a second she reached up and ran the back of one hand across her cheek, obliterating a tear track. Levi just sat there, waiting. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and too quiet, but Levi was fine with awkward, uncomfortable, and too quiet. He thrived on those conditions and he knew she would cave first. Humans almost always did with this kind of thing—it was the need to fill the silence with noise. With something, anything really, so they wouldn’t have to sit alone with their own thoughts.
Not a terribly introspective species.
After a couple more uncomfortable minutes, Ryder shrugged her shoulders and turned back toward him.
“Fine, if it’ll get you outta my hair quicker, I’ll talk. I was kidnapped,” she said. “Kidnapped by a bunch of freaky monsters. Creepers with blue skin. Cultists, maybe, I dunno. Had to be something like that. They drugged me and took me somewhere. I don’t know where, but it was dark and it smelled like shit. There were a few other people with me, but …” She trailed off. “I can’t remember—and it’s not important anyway. They-they cut me open.” She uncrossed her arms and traced a finger along her stomach.
“That’s what’s important. They did something to me, I dunno what. Stole an organ? All the docs around here say I’m not missing anything, but that’s what I think. Only thing that makes any fucking sense. What else?” She paused for effect. “Oh right, then some colossal, gray-skinned dude busted in, snatched me up, and dropped me off at this hospital. Truth is, I’m from Pennsylvania and I don’t have a clue, not a fucking clue, how in the hell I ended up in Colorado.”
Levi nodded noncommittally as she spoke. Still, he could understand why the cops had thought she was on drugs. The story was unbelievable and sounded far closer to a bad LSD trip than anything that might happen in reality. Sometimes the truth could be a damn hard pill to swallow. That’s how all the monsters stayed hidden: most humans unfortunate enough to run afoul of the preternatural crowd ended up dead.
And for the few that escaped? Written off as crazies, druggies, conspiracy theorists. Humans who lived to tell the tale quickly learned where spouting such stories got you. Alienated from friends and family. Laid off. Living in a cardboard box on the wrong side of the tracks. And sometimes, in a padded cell, loaded to the gills with Clozapine or Risperdal.
A tough pill to swallow, indeed.
“Listen,” Levi said, “I know ho
w difficult this must be, but can you think of anyone who might want to harm you? Any reason you might’ve been abducted? Any reason at all?”
She was still for a few heartbeats, silent, eyes turned inward. “No,” she said eventually with a slight shake of her head. “Nothing. Now can you please leave? I’m tired.” She pressed her eyes closed.
Liar. She was hiding something, that much was obvious, but then Levi found most people were hiding something: a secret sin, not unlike his own need for murder, that they would do anything to leave buried. Likely, the girl was just an unfortunate casualty in some bigger game.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Ryder.”
He got up and let himself out of the room, shutting the door behind him, heading back out toward the nursing station. His finger brushed at the note in his pocket. He wasn’t prepared to let this thing go, not quite yet, but the girl looked to be a dead end …
Or maybe not.
Two men loitered near the elevators.
Except they weren’t actually men. Some clueless human might believe the ruse, but Levi’s eyes saw true. Both fellows stood at five and a half feet and had ropy arms, strangely lopsided shoulders, and distended bellies. The skin on their meat suits was too loose, like poorly done Halloween costumes, only in reverse: instead of humans pretending to be monstrous things of the dark places, these suits allowed monsters to pretend to be civilized beings of the surface world.
Though Levi couldn’t see beneath their masks, he didn’t need too. He could tell a Kobock when he saw one, even up here. These were murderous bastards, too. He could see it around them like a hazy black cloud polluting the air. The reek of death stained their auras.
