“I believe you’re creative enough to live with the cuts,” said Bankbridge.
“Maybe, but my cats aren’t creative enough to imagine eating food. They’ve grown accustomed to the real thing.”
Everyone at the table stared at her. Bankbridge’s eyes flashed anger for a brief moment, then he continued: “Let’s not be overly dramatic. I’m talking about the habitat refurbishment. The numbers seem a little…extravagant.”
“I thought the numbers were settled months ago. And considering Great Cats is one of the most popular exhibits, I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Seems arbitrary. Or worse, not arbitrary.”
“You’re out of line. We’ll talk after.”
Lindsay’s face grew red and she stared at the table. She was sure the people on either side of her could feel the heat coming from her cheeks. Eventually the staff turned and faced Bankbridge and he turned to other matters. Lindsay doodled on a notepad until the meeting concluded and people filed out of the room. Soon it was just her and the director, alone at the table. He rose from the head of the table, closed the door to the hallway, and turned around.
He took a deep breath.
“I’ve given you a lot of rope, young lady, so I don’t know who exactly you think you’re talking to.”
“Likewise,” she said. She continued to doodle.
“Excuse me?”
“ ‘You’re out of line’? ‘We’ll talk after’? This isn’t the military, or worse, high school. If you don’t like being challenged maybe you should find another line of work.”
It was Bankbridge’s turn for his face to redden. He took a sharp breath, ready to explode. Before he could, Lindsay sprang from her chair. She crossed the room until she was standing over him. The sudden movement startled him and whatever he was about to yell died in his throat. She leaned in.
“If you ever call me ‘young lady’ again, I’ll supplement my cats’ diet with your balls.” She slapped the notepad on the table in front of him, revealing a crude sketch of a tiger seizing a stick figure by the crotch. “Creative enough for you?”
She walked out, leaving Bankbridge stunned.
As she walked down the hall, she cursed herself. Foolish. There were a dozen better, more diplomatic ways she could have handled that. There was also a steely voice that said fuck him. At least she had waited until everyone was out of the room. She would definitely have some new fuel for training tonight. As if she needed any.
Her phone dinged in her pocket. It was a text from Ben.
Still on for tonight?
She smiled. Something to hit, she thought.
Chapter 3
When Drexler slid out of the booth to greet him, Richard noticed he did not have the cane he used when they had worked together. It had been twenty years since they had seen or spoken to each other, so there had been the expected changes too, but there was something else different about him that Richard couldn’t quite put his finger on. The lines in his face were deeper, his hair was fully gray now and his hairline receded, but he looked healthy. No, thought Richard, he looks happy. Lighter somehow. The entire time he had known Henry Drexler, the man had been stooped, but the one who rose to greet him stood straight and tall.
Drexler hugged him. “Look at you, you rascal. You must give me the devil’s name you sold your soul to. You haven’t changed a bit. Not a single bit.”
Richard took his seat opposite. “I’m afraid I can’t say the same. You seem…taller, Henry. How is that possible?”
“My father passed.”
“Anyone else on the planet says that to me, I give my condolences.”
“I’d made my peace with him a long time ago.”
“Really?”
“Not with the man himself, mind you,” said Henry. “He was a bastard to the bitter end. But the idea of him…”
Henry laughed. Despite himself, Richard’s spirits lifted at the sound of it. It was a rare occurrence to see Henry Drexler delighted; he wished they could speak like this forever. Perhaps they would have, but the waitress came over with coffee and broke the spell. Richard drank for a moment, then placed his mug down gently.
“Do you follow the news?” asked Severance.
“As little as practicable.” Drexler spread his arms, indicating the near-empty diner, the desolate parking lot, the lonely Pine Barrens beyond that. “It’s quiet here. I prefer it that way.”
“Even you must have seen this. A few months ago, a town in Minnesota—Barnabus—was sacked.”
“Sacked?”
Richard looked around and leaned in. “The media believed they were hyenas, of all things. I helped them to believe that.”
Drexler took a sip of his own coffee and regarded his old friend. “But they weren’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t have excavated your old professor from his retirement.”
“This isn’t the first brush I’ve had recently with a cryptid. A year and a half ago, someone sicced one on a neighborhood. Folklore as a weapon. I helped to stop it. But in Barnabus, the scale…This was folklore as an invasive species. Everything we ever believed in, Henry, everything we feared, everything we searched for together but never found a trace of, I have seen with my own two eyes in the past eighteen months.”
“Where did they come from?”
“A Trojan horse in the form of a very small, very ancient chest.”
It was Drexler’s turn to lean forward. “Do you have it?”
“I did, but I dropped it.”
“Dropped it?”
Richard smiled. “Into a drum. That I filled with concrete. Then I took a cruise and dropped that into the Mariana Trench.”
They regarded each other.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” said Drexler.
“I wish you hadn’t sent it in the first place,” said Richard.
The three rough customers down at the other end of the diner rose in unison and ambled toward the door. Before reaching it, two of the men slid into their booth, trapping them, while the third continued outside, where Erica was leaning against the Rolls looking at her phone. The man who sat next to Richard said nothing, just stared at him with pale, ice-blue eyes beneath a sweep of hair that was buzzed short on the sides, while the one with the tattooed face who slid in next to Drexler wore a broad smile and spoke in an effusive voice.
“Hey man, that’s a really nice ride.”
“I should hope so; it retails for the cost of a single-family home. You should totally get one.”
“Wasn’t talking about the car.” He waggled his eyebrows in the direction of Erica.
“I see what you did there. Very clever.” He looked at Drexler. “Yours?”
Before Drexler could answer, the third man had reached Erica. Away from the pack, Severance noted he wore a Vandyke beard and his black hair slicked back. He wore a gray vest and a wallet chain and Severance didn’t know if the look he was going for was greaser or antebellum dandy. Pinned into the booth, Richard could only watch her through the diner’s window as the man leaned against the Rolls, crowding her. She recoiled and dropped her phone. By instinct the man glanced at it as it fell to the ground, not expecting her to spring off the car and into him. Richard would have had to have filmed it and played it back in slow motion to detect the individual movements, because she seemed to disappear into the man, beneath his arm, and then suddenly the man’s legs were in the air. Just as suddenly, he was on his back. He tried to spring up, but something small and black was in Erica’s hand, as if by magic or some sleight of hand, and she brought it down hard across his face in a vicious slap. Without wasting a movement, she backhanded him across the other side of his face. He stopped moving. The blackjack dangled from her wrist as she contemplated another strike.
Richard turned back to the tattooed man. “She doesn’t even let me touch the car and I own it.”
Both of the men glanced at Drexler, then bolted from the booth. They spilled out of the diner and charged toward Erica. She had cocked her arm, ready
for the first one to reach her, when the rear windshield of the pickup truck behind her exploded. Both men stopped immediately.
Richard could hear muffled shouting through the window.
“My truck!”
The quieter man who had sat next to Richard took another step toward the pickup and Richard heard a pop, then saw the truck jerk to one side. Tire, he thought. Another step, another loud pop, and the pickup leveled again. Finally, both men halted.
The tattooed owner screamed obscenities, hopping from foot to foot, having finally received the message not to approach any closer, but ignoring Erica completely now in favor of his perforated truck. The man with the sideswept undercut kept his pale eyes locked on her, smiling. He was in a crouch, a knife in his hand. He scanned for the source of the shots, looking for an opportunity to slip the invisible leash he found himself on. Erica, six feet away, was in a crouch as well, the arm holding the blackjack cocked at her side. The unconscious man lay between them.
Richard and Drexler regarded each other. Neither seemed surprised.
“Can we talk now?” asked Richard.
Drexler sighed and rapped on the glass. The tattooed man looked pissed, but smacked his friend’s arm, and together they dragged their unconscious comrade back into the diner and past Richard’s booth. The waitresses who had seen it all had not seen this before. They trailed the beaten trio at a curious distance, like seagulls hovering over a beach umbrella. As they passed, Severance called, “You probably want to get some ice on that…”
“Next time,” said the tattooed man.
Richard ignored him and turned back to Drexler.
“Really?” he said.
“I’m not the one who brought a sniper,” said Drexler.
“Weren’t you the one who taught me to prepare for every eventuality?”
“You’ve certainly overprepared for a friendly chat.”
“You’ll have to pardon my surprise when I discover my old friend and mentor is keeping company with, what I can only assume by their oh-so-subtle swastikas and ‘88’ neck tattoos, neo-Nazis. The Henry Drexler I knew wouldn’t associate with any Nazis, neo, classic, or otherwise. Not even his own father.”
Drexler looked into his coffee cup.
“Things are not always what they seem.”
“Enlighten me then.”
“I’ve been running from my past for years, Richard.”
“So now you’re embracing it?”
Drexler shook his head vigorously. “I spent a good many years looking for monsters in the shadows, maybe my best years. But it was wholly unnecessary,” he said, looking over Richard’s shoulder to the booth where the two men were staring daggers at Severance as the third was beginning to come around. “When monsters, real monsters, were right out in the open.”
“I have news for you,” said Richard, leaning in. “There’s monsters in the shadows too. Over a year ago, a kushtaka chewed its way through Arlington—and the woman using it claimed a limping man handed her the leash. At the time I thought, Can’t be, because my dear, trusted mentor and I never actually found any cryptids. Then a few months ago, I’m in Wisconsin and I find a chest that spits them out like a vending machine. A legendary artifact that I had only ever heard about from said dear old mentor. So as disturbed as I am by the company you’re keeping nowadays, Henry, I’m more concerned about all of your man-eating demons I keep bumping into.”
Henry leaned forward, his voice hushed but intense, his eyes ablaze. “Can we just stop for a moment and appreciate what you’ve seen? We spent so many years looking for clues. For anything. And with your own two eyes, you’ve finally confirmed these things exist.”
Severance broke Drexler’s gaze and looked out the window. “They’re not what we thought they’d be. They’re not animals, Henry. They’re monsters.”
“Why are you here, Richard?”
“I needed to see if you’ve turned into a monster yourself. I have my answer.”
Drexler looked like he had swallowed something sour. “My father was a monster. Like it or not, he left a void with the many people he had his hooks sunken into, including my own son. It’s slow going, but I’m trying to teach them there’s a better way. I wish you would come back with me to Välkommen. See what I’m trying to accomplish.”
“So you’re rehabilitating them, that’s it?”
The men stared at each other.
“Do you trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone, Henry. Least of all you.”
Severance got up to leave. As he headed for the door, Drexler called out. “The best time of my life was with you by my side, Richard. I was the best I could be. Together, I believed we were going to change the world. I still believe it.”
“People are dead and you’re going to answer for it.” Richard turned away.
“And you’re going to come around,” said Drexler. “In the end.”
“You better hope I don’t.”
Richard walked out of the diner. Erica opened the door of the Rolls for him with a flourish. For a moment his eyes locked with Drexler’s, who regarded him from the booth. Then Richard climbed inside the car and Erica closed the door, blowing a kiss to the men through the window. She wheeled the car around then and spun the tires on the way out of the lot, spraying the bullet-ridden pickup with dirt and pebbles.
Richard went to Recents on his phone and tapped the last number.
“Were the bullets entirely necessary?” he asked.
Erica craned her neck from the driver’s seat. “Tell him I don’t need his fucking help.”
“You’re not paying me to hesitate,” said Davis Holland. “You have a problem with the way I run an op, find someone else.”
Richard called to the front. “He says he’s very sorry and will respect your boundaries in the future.”
“Shove that rifle up his ass sideways…” muttered Erica.
“They’ll be looking for you,” said Richard to Davis.
“Your friends aren’t going anywhere,” said Davis, “but I’m sure a squadron of rednecks will be screaming out of the compound any second now.”
“Get the hell out of there then.”
“Already on my way. Tell Driving Miss Daisy to watch for tails.”
Richard tossed the phone on the seat beside him and exhaled loudly. The adrenaline was starting to ebb, with dread already flooding in to replace it.
When he looked up, Erica was regarding him in the rearview mirror.
“You okay?” he asked.
She scrunched her whole face at him, giving him the look she reserved for remarks that she considered “bore-ass”: stupid or an utter waste of time.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You get what you need from your friend?”
He contemplated the question as he stared out the window at the pine trees ticking by. Every answer their rendezvous provided only yielded more questions, and each one strongly suggested that he and Henry Drexler were no longer friends.
“I have to call them in,” he said. “Again.”
Chapter 4
Ben sat on the padded floor of the studio, taking deep, centering breaths to clear his mind. His back was ramrod straight; the backs of his hands rested on his knees, his wrists facing upward to the ceiling of the large, airy space. They called it sitting Indian-style when he had been in grade school. He wondered if that was offensive now. He considered asking his friend Alex Standingcloud, an Ojibwe professor, but thought better of it. Alex had a lot going on these days and it would not be worth the man’s time. But what did kids call it now? Can’t be Native American–style, he thought. Ben didn’t know any kindergartners to ask. Shit, he thought, I’m just going to have to work it into my next conversation with Alex. The question scratched at the back of Ben’s mind until he suddenly realized he had not been listening to the instructor for quite some time.
“Breathe,” said Sifu Brian from the head of the class. His position mirrored
that of his students. Bald and wiry and handsome, he appeared to be the same age as Ben, but radiated serenity. Ben felt a pang of jealousy.
The studio itself was in a strip mall in South Arlington. It was a no-frills space, resembling a warehouse, and shared a wall with a cross-training gym next door. The contrast could not be more apparent. Whenever Ben attended a tai chi class, with its requisite meditation, the sounds of grunting and yelling could be heard through the thin adjoining wall. Worst of all, meatheads would drop massive weights to the ground, which rattled the entire structure. As if on cue, a barrage of plates hit the deck next door, jangling Ben’s nerves.
“Shit!” he yelled.
All heads turned in his direction. The Sifu opened a single eye at Ben.
“Sorry,” mumbled Ben. “Breathing.”
After class, the Sifu strolled over as Ben waited by the stairs.
“You know, I pride myself on being able to immediately assess the energy people bring to my class and then adjust my instruction accordingly, and I’m sensing deep agitation within you.”
“It’s that obvious?”
“No one ever yelled ‘shit’ during meditation before.”
“My apologies, Sifu.”
“What are you hoping to achieve here, Ben?”
“Mind-body connection, inner peace, total body fitness…”
“Have you considered yoga? The rec center up the street has some wonderful classes, you know.”
Ben made a face. He considered being honest, or honest-adjacent. “Do you ever feel like the other shoe is going to drop? Like any minute? Do you know what I mean?”
Sifu Brian smiled. “I think everyone has at one point or another.”
“With me, I’m terrified it’s going to, but at the same time I’m furious it hasn’t yet. Like, let’s get it on already.”
Sifu Brian’s smile faded and his smooth brow knitted. Ben wondered how to make him understand, but there was no way, so instead, he said, “I walk around all day angry, anxious, agitated, afraid. There was this one time though when I felt…at peace. I felt a great energy. I guess I’m chasing that.”
The Devil's Colony Page 3
