“Do you know where on the trail the ghost shows up the most?” I was already guessing at probable causes, and narrowing down the location would help a lot.
Father Leo slid a paper with coordinates over to me. “From what the witnesses say, that’s the epicenter. Sightings and phenomena occur within a couple hundred feet of that spot, but it’s apparently Ground Zero.”
I sighed and slipped the paper into my pocket. Father Leo was a good guy, and a friend. “I’ve got a couple of appointments this morning at the garage, but I’ll go out this afternoon and see what I can see,” I said.
“Thank you,” Father Leo replied. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt—and the trails project is important.”
We finished our meals talking about the Steelers’ defensive line, the Pirates’ batting averages, and whether the Penguins would be in the running for the Stanley Cup again. Everybody around here pretty much bleeds black and gold for the Pittsburgh teams, or blue and white for Penn State if we’re talking about college ball. People might pretend they don’t care, but when the playoffs come, fans get rabid. Someone told me once “there are no atheists in football” meaning everyone really has a team they believe in. I’m pretty sure the phrase is “no atheists in foxholes,” but it seemed accurate either way.
The morning passed quickly, and for a while, I quit thinking of railroad ghosts and wendigos as I got my hands dirty working on engine blocks and carburetors. Some people knit; others do yoga. For me, the best therapy in the world happens with a wrench and some motor oil. My garage works on all kinds of cars, but I love working on old classics and helping out when one of our local car nuts is rebuilding one from the frame up. Before hunting took up so much of my time, I used to help out at the local rallies and race tracks. Spending a nice summer night with a cold beer and the smell of gasoline and burning rubber at the track is my kind of heaven.
I worked through lunch, stopping just long enough to wolf down sandwiches Pete fetched from the place up the street. The afternoon got slow, and by three, I left Pete to close down, since I wanted to go check out the trail well before dark.
Both ends of the new trail were completed, but the ghostly disturbances had shut down finishing the middle. I had checked out the project’s website. It would be a wonderful local destination when it was finished, with a smooth asphalt trail perfect for walkers, joggers, cyclists, even wheelchairs and strollers. Local bird watchers, garden groups, and the botany department from the college had all signed on to tag plant specimens, erect informational signs, and create guide books. Groups from the Rotary to the Daughters of the American Revolution pledged money for benches along the route. Schools were already planning nature hikes.
And one grumpy ghost threatened to shut it down.
I parked at the midpoint construction entrance and pulled my gear bag out of the back. It was full of all the stuff I usually needed for a job like this: salt, holy water, lighter fluid, iron, and wooden stakes, a crow bar, an EMF scanner, a shotgun with a choice of shells filled with iron pellets or rock salt, and a shovel, just in case.
No one Father Leo had talked to seemed to know who the ghost was, which made it tough. Some of the witnesses thought they saw a man wearing a Fedora, which only narrowed it down to the first half of the twentieth century. My internet search turned up bupkis on railroad fatalities linked to this stretch of rail. I was going in blind, and I hated it. That kind of thing gets hunters killed.
The middle stretch of trail had a gravel base, but no asphalt yet, and one end was just scraped dirt. The long, straight vista made it easy to envision tracks, with freight trains rumbling down the rails at full speed, blowing their whistles when they passed neighboring farms. Trees and marshland stretched on both sides, with nary a farm in sight, making this spot either peaceful or lonely, depending on your perspective. Tools and machinery looked like they had been abandoned by a crew that went to lunch and never came back, which wasn’t far from the truth.
Wind rustled the treetops, but otherwise, the woods were eerily quiet. I should have heard birds chirping and seen squirrels and chipmunks scurrying, maybe even spotted a rabbit or a deer. Other than the leaves rustling in the wind, nothing moved. I felt the hair prickle at the back of my neck.
The EMF reader stayed quiet, its needle still in the green range. I poured a salt circle and set down my gear bag inside, although I doubted any ghost could get past the sigils and protective runes painted and stitched on the bag itself. I had my Glock tucked in my belt at my back like always, but I grabbed a crowbar, a flask of holy water, and some salt. Then I went for a stroll.
The longer I stayed, the more I could feel someone watching me, though there was no one in sight. The EMF reader gave a few hiccups, but no piercing squeals. I walked along the dirt portion, but saw no sign of recently dug up bones. Still, the unnatural silence gave me the heebie-jeebies, and I had the feeling something was biding its time.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of movement, but when I turned, nothing stirred. If this son of a bitch ghost felt like playing games, I refused to play nice. I made another slow pass, and this time, the EMF reader twitched more, jumping up from yellow to red and swinging back and forth wildly.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I murmured, holding an iron crowbar in one hand and the EMF reader in the other. A loud squawk from the meter froze me mid-step, and I turned in a slow circle, on guard. Nothing stirred, but the meter definitely made more noise when I pointed it off to the right, so I stepped down from the rough asphalt and walked straight toward the edge of the woods.
The trees had surely been kept farther back from the rails when trains were running, so I figured that the old tree line was probably at least two or three feet in from the current edge of the woods. My foot hit something solid, and I kicked at the covering of leaves, unearthing a steel spike sunk into the ground and rising out of the dirt by a few inches once the debris was cleared.
The meter went wild. I could see something etched in the domed head of the spike, and bent for a closer look. Someone had carved a symbol in the steel, but I didn’t recognize it, so I dropped the meter in my pocket and took a picture with my phone. I lost my balance as I got to my feet, and when I put out a hand to steady myself, my palm brushed the spike.
An unseen force picked me up and threw me beyond the trees on the grass at the side of the trail. I landed hard on my back, knocking the breath out of me and knocking the crowbar out of my hand. Before I could get up, a man loomed over me. He wore a long top coat, a scarf, and a Fedora. The style of his coat and the suit jacket lapels I could see under it made me think Swing era. With a beak of a nose, dark, accusing eyes, and thin, tightly pressed lips, he clearly didn’t look happy to see me.
And, oh yeah, he was gray and translucent.
Fedora Man reached for me, and I rolled to one side, scrabbling for the crowbar. I came up swinging, and one pass of cold iron sent the ghost packing, but I knew he wouldn’t be gone for long. I grabbed my gear bag and ran. Behind me, a man’s laughter filled the air, cold and mocking.
When I reached Elvira, I threw one arm over the side of the bed and heaved for breath, never taking my eyes off the spot where I came out of the woods. Nothing followed me, and I wondered if I had imagined the laughter.
No, I didn’t. But what the fuck? What was a guy dressed like he was going out for dinner, back in the Glenn Miller era, doing next to railroad tracks that at the time they were in use would have been in the middle of woods and cornfields? Who the hell put that funky stake in the ground, and what was that symbol? Did Fedora Man throw me on my ass, or was it bad juju from that stake?
Too many questions and not enough answers. I stowed my bag and got in, happy to peel out of the gravel access road and get away. One thing I did know: whatever haunted the rail line had serious mojo. Someone was going to have to put it down, and I knew in my bones that “someone” would be me.
Friday evening at Crystal Dreams was Cards Against Humani
ty (CAH) night for the eighteen to twenty-one crowd. Everyone was welcome, but those in the know knew the group was also a safe space for the LGBT teens in the area—a popular haven. Chiara put out cookies and punch, and then hung out in the main section of the store until game night ended at nine.
I strolled in just as the game must have gotten underway because I could hear loud laughter and picked out some definitely NSFW phrases.
“Didn’t think I’d see you here on a Friday night,” Chiara said, moving out from behind the counter. A few latecomers browsed the bookshelves, but Conneaut Lake’s nightlife tends more toward the local watering holes like my favorite, The Drunk Monk. “Thought you’d be holed up with a six-pack of IC and that Ice Road Truckers marathon on the History Channel.”
“Bite me.”
“So not appropriate.” She rolled her eyes and grinned. We had a long history of inappropriate humor, and the games of CAH she and Blair and I played were spectacularly politically incorrect.
I pulled out my phone. “Got a picture to show you.”
She grinned. “Please tell me you aren’t going to show dick pics to a lesbian.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “I don’t show dick pics to anyone,” I replied, looking heavenward for patience. “Although the ghost who threw me across the tracks acted like a dick and may, in fact, have been named Dick. I didn’t know.”
That got her attention. “Really? What’ve you got?”
I showed her the symbol carved on the stake, expecting a wisecrack. Instead, she paled and her eyes went wide. “Sweet Mother of God,” she murmured. “That the mark of a stregone.”
It took a lot to get a reaction like that out of Chiara. “That sounds like a type of pasta. Enlighten me.”
Chiara blinked and regained her composure. “Not pasta, not pastry. It’s a male witch from Italy. And in these parts, likely to be more Mob than Mephistopheles.”
“No shit. The Mob has warlocks?”
Chiara cringed. “Normally, I’d school you that ‘warlock’ is a pejorative, outdated term, and ‘witch’ is preferred regardless of gender, but in this case, you’re dead on. Stregone are bad news, especially the Sicilian ones.” She shook her head. “When you step in it, Mark, you go hip-deep, don’t you?”
“It’s a talent,” I replied.
Chiara looked up as her last two customers left without buying anything. She flipped the sign on the door to “closed,” and then went behind the counter, pulled out a bottle of whiskey, and grabbed two Styrofoam coffee cups before leading me over to a couple of arm chairs out of sight of the front windows. Once she had poured us both a couple of fingers-worth of booze, she took a slug and sat back.
“From the stories Nonna Lucia tells, I thought the last real stregone vamoosed from around here after the Yablonski murders down in Clarksville back in the late sixties made national news.”
I wasn’t born then, but like everyone in these parts, I knew the stories. Nearby Meadville was conveniently located between Youngstown, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; and Pittsburgh, all allegedly hotbeds of Mob activity back in the day. People whispered that capos and lieutenants came out here to “cool off” when things got too hot to handle, either from law enforcement or rival Mafiosi families. That Sopranos shit doesn’t just happen in Chicago and New York; my dad had stories to tell about dirty deeds done dirt cheap in these parts that could curl your hair.
Mob connections around here were something everybody “knew,” but no one could or would prove. Most of the time, the local Don kept his boys on a tight leash. Civilians didn’t get hurt, paybacks happened in private, and everyone was happy to look the other way.
“So, of course, this is all just hearsay,” Chiara prefaced her tale, as everyone did around here. Just so I wouldn’t ever think she might have heard it from a member of her extended family who might have been in the “family business.”
“Of course.”
She gave me a death stare, and I stuck out my tongue at her. The evening was just getting started.
“So the Families around here did well for themselves during Prohibition and ‘reinvested’ in a lot of legitimate businesses.”
In other words, laundered the cash. But whatever.
“The forties, fifties, and early sixties were the heyday,” Chiara continued, sounding almost nostalgic. “The steel mills and factories in Pittsburgh, Youngstown, and Buffalo were booming, Union dues were big money, and the cops were the best money could buy. Life was good. But now and then, someone got out of line—”
“And needed whacked.”
“Yeah.”
“So, these stregone, why use a witch when you could just call in a hit man?”
Chiara took another swig of whiskey. “No one would, unless the hit man didn’t come back.”
I stared at her. “Damn.”
She quirked her head to one side. “Hey, the Family plays rough. Hit men and witches don’t come cheap, so whoever needed to be taken care of had to be a big fuckin’ deal. A made man, probably high up, maybe with connections to the big-city Families.”
“So who do you think Fedora Man was? The witch or the target?”
Chiara grimaced. “No idea. But…why don’t you come to dinner with Blair and me tomorrow night? I’ll sit next to Nonno Carlo and make sure his wine glass never goes empty. By dessert, he’ll be telling you all the ‘good old days’ stories you can handle, and I might be able to nudge him in the right direction.”
I weighed my options. Dinner with Chiara’s big, rowdy Italian family—some of whom were still willfully in denial about her “good friend” Blair—was sure to be full of loud family drama. On the other hand, the Morettis owned not only a bakery but the best damn Italian restaurant in the tri-state, and I knew from the leftovers Chiara brought back that the food at home was even better.
“All right, you made me an offer—”
“Oh, don’t even go there.”
I held up my hands in surrender. “I promise to be on my best behavior.”
She snorted. “That’s rich, coming from you.”
“Do I get a cheat sheet ahead of time to know which ones believe you’re actually married, and which ones might be trying to foist you off on me?” Chiara’s very conservative Italian Roman Catholic family had not completely accepted her relationship with Blair. On the other hand, Father Leo not only sent a wedding present, he included a bottle of bubbly. Go figure.
Chiara let out a string of curses in Italian, and while I’m not fluent, what I could pick up made my eyebrows rise. “Listen up. Nonna and Nonno figure if they don’t see it, it’s not real. Mama says novenas for me every day. Daddy’s surprisingly cool with everything, says he doesn’t care as long as we’re happy. Ditto for Tony, Eddie, Carmen, and Frank,” she added, naming off her brothers, all except one. “Michael—he’s the family hard-ass. Missed his calling with the Inquisition.” She wrinkled her nose. “God, I love him, but he’s such a prick. I told him that he was probably gay himself since he was so hung up on it.” She chuckled. “Thought he was gonna pop an aneurysm.”
Chiara knocked back her drink. “But at the end of the day, he loves me as much as the rest of the family.”
I got the feeling that was a loaded statement, and I wasn’t touching it with a ten-foot pole.
“What time?” I asked.
“Dinner’s always at six,” she replied.
“No, I meant, what time should I start drinking before I get there.”
She punched me in the shoulder. “That depends. Do you intend to drive home? Cuz calling a cab in Conneaut Lake is gonna be a long wait.”
Chapter 3
I knew the Moretti brothers by reputation long before I met Chiara. One of the first stories I heard when I moved back after my brief absence was how five local boys took out a werewolf that tried to kill their sister and her date. I’d been surprised because I thought that a secret government agency had taken out all the local werewolves back in the 1890s, but I guess one or two always sl
ip the net.
Anyhow, the Moretti brothers handled the werewolf with extreme prejudice, and that’s what got Chiara into the business of hunter support. Yeah, the cops tried to tell them that it was really just a hippie high on meth, but all the therapy in the world wasn’t going to change their minds about what they saw that night.
Apparently, Chiara had told her brothers about me because I got a warm welcome when I walked into the house. The Moretti’s home was one of the two-and-a-half-story WWII vintage houses that are everywhere in these parts, solidly comfortable and middle class, like their owners. I knew Chiara’s mother was devout, and from the Virgin Mary statue in the front yard to the religious bric-a-brac, that hadn’t changed.
I’d had a bit of a chip on my shoulder before I arrived, knowing that not all of Chiara’s family accepted her marriage to Blair. But I was blown away by how friendly everyone was and how easily I got sucked into the jokes and chit-chat. If Blair felt uneasy, she hid it well, lounging on one of the well-worn couches with an arm slung over Chiara’s shoulder talking hunting gossip with Eddie and Carmen.
Nonna Lucia sat straight-backed and imperious in a rocking chair, with her dark gray hair swept up in a bun and a shawl around her shoulders. She might have been pushing eighty, but I had the feeling she could still put me in my place like a whelp. Nonno Carlo sat near her on the couch, holding a dark-haired toddler who was sucking her thumb.
Chiara’s mother, Maria Louise, bustled around the kitchen and dining room like a general in an apron, directing her daughters-in-law who snapped to do her bidding. She was a wiry woman with classic good looks that did not wilt even in the heat of a hot kitchen, and I respected the work she and her husband had put into maintaining their foodie empire. Jimmy Moretti, Chiara’s father, stood in the doorway to the dining room holding a beer, deep in conversation with Michael.
Spells, Salt, & Steel--A New Templars Novella Page 4
