Whisper Lake (The Turning Book 2)

by Micky Neilson

  Not when they had finally caught the son of a bitch.

  ***

  It was late when Celine finally arrived at the sawmill. There had been a great deal of information for the two of them to share—once Celine had calmed her boyfriend down at the sight of her bruised face and the knot on her forehead. She assured him she was okay and they had talked. Most couples, at the end of the day, struggled to find anything interesting to chat about. Not her and Jason. He had nearly been kidnapped to probably be used as a lab rat for some shadowy no-name organization… and she had put away a wanted criminal.

  Celine was worried that Jason might be mad that the rage he had vented on CJ was misdirected, at least for the particular crimes of the beatings. But relief had spread across his features when he learned that not only had the real culprit been caught, but that it hadn't been CJ after all. Of all his best friend's sins, Celine could tell that it had been somewhat comforting for Jason to remove that one from the list.

  They had talked for hours. What Jason had been most excited to share with her was what he had found at the library. He had already told her the night before about Ishtar. Now he was talking about the other deity he had studied: Hecate. Goddess of portals to other worlds, a goddess associated with the moon and dogs… it all seemed very strange. As Jason continued talking, Celine's mind kept returning to Ishtar: "Bestower of Strength."

  Celine thought about the fight. Other than being a little sore, she was doing great. Her rib alone should be killing her from the additional trauma after the first attack but it felt okay, almost fully healed. Overall, she felt fine. More than fine, actually— confident, in control… strong. Something else was building inside her as well. She thought of the last time she had seen Connor, seated in the back of Sheriff Barclay's cruiser. She thought of the fear in his eyes, and the blood on her hands. A furnace-like heat arose from somewhere deep within her. A sudden, liquid fire raced through her veins; raging, burning, blazing like the barrel inferno in the corner of the room that sent shadows dancing across the walls.

  In one smooth motion she rose from where she sat crossed legged, and as Jason broke off mid-sentence, staring, she shed her coat and jeans. Her shoes had already been removed. One by one her socks went next, then her sweat-top and bra, and finally her already-wet panties. Jason sat against the wall and simply stared, a slow hunger emerging in his gaze.

  Three confident strides carried Celine to Jason's position. She stood, rotated her knees outward, lowered her hips, reached out and grabbed Jason by the back of his head. Her fists clenched in hair that had now begun to grow out of its short military cut, and pulled Jason's face to her pussy. He closed his eyes and set to work, his tongue fondling her lips at first, then probing deep within. Lightning arced from Celine's toes to the back of her head.

  She rolled her hips forward, grinding into Jason's mouth. As she looked down his eyes opened and the spark of desire she had seen there a moment ago was now replaced by a raw, primitive, carnal blaze. She came to the brink once, twice… then at last took the plunge, freefalling though the vast emptiness beyond her reality-clouded mind.

  With sudden urgency Jason stood, whipped his own clothes from his body, and guided his dick into her. They spun into the wall, where he pinned her briefly. Celine bit at his neck, just short of breaking skin. She reached back, pushed off the wall and they both ended up on the carpeted floor. He had slipped out of her in the fall, and she straddled him now, squatting with legs on either side. She grasped his dick with one hand, sliding down the length of his shaft, slowly at first and then rising to the tip before descending down again. She put both hands to his chest and dug her nails in, repeating the ascending and descending motions with increasing speed, building to an incessant, rhythmic pounding. Briefly, she thought of how Jason had fucked her with primal abandon on the Wayside table, then the thought was gone. She closed her eyes and in her frenzied ecstasy was transported to a time before time; before the civilized, wooden, brick-and-mortar world of man; a time when the first of her kind ran naked and unburdened beneath the stars. She thought again of Ishtar, a goddess of war. A goddess of lust. Goddess…

  She liked the sound of that.

  ***

  Sheriff Barclay was glad it was Celine's day at the Wayside. The less she saw of the rat-fuck sonofabitch who tried to take Kyra, and who tried for the second time to lay a beating on her, the better. Ty had let the shithead sweat it out for the entirety of the day—after Doc Keen had checked him out of course—and now the dickless wonder was in the interview room, waiting.

  The bastard was sitting still as a statue when Ty opened the door. Didn't look over, didn't even blink. He just sat there, handcuffed wrists in his lap, looking like a churchgoer awaiting a sermon. A good portion of both sides of his face was the color of an eggplant, his right eye was swollen shut and his left cheek looked like it was stuffed with cotton balls. Made it difficult for the sheriff not to smile.

  "Might as well just come out and tell me why," the sheriff said as he pulled up a chair to the other side of the table. Connor was looking through Ty with that one eye, like he wasn't even in the room.

  "I've got Celine's statement…" Ty continued.

  Finally the church mouse spoke, and when he did, the left side of his mouth stayed mostly shut. It made the sheriff think of Jonah Hex from those western comics he'd read in the 70s. It looked painful. Good. His words were a little hard to understand but Ty got the gist. "That lunatic… attacked me. I'd like to press charges. She assaulted me and I was forced to defend myself."

  "Not how Kyra saw it," Ty replied.

  "She's easily influenced, always has been…" It sounded like he was speaking through a mask, which made Ty think of what he wore when he had assaulted the women. When he had assaulted Celine. The sheriff felt his blood rise. "Celine obviously has her… synced to the same preposterous delusion." Despite the difficulty in speech, there was a hint of superiority in the bastard's voice, like he was lowering himself to be in the sheriff's presence.

  "And what about the neighbor lady sittin' on her porch? Part of the delusion as well?"

  "A geriatric spinster… hardly makes for a compelling witness," Connor said, and looked defiantly at the sheriff now with that one eye.

  "Well," Ty said, leaning forward, elbows on the table, one hand clasped in the other. "That'd be all well and good, 'cept the state police secured a search warrant for your dorm room, as well as that fancy little hideaway you maintain at your folks' house. And that was where they found the most interesting evidence, tucked away in your closet… some bomb making materials, some maps with locations marked, and photographs, polaroids of various medical clinics throughout the county, including the one right here in Whisper Lake. That one had a red 'X' through it, and the words "one down" in very neat print."

  Connor's façade dropped ever so slightly. His non-swollen cheek twitched, and there was a sudden tightness around his good eye.

  "State police are already on their way to pick you up, so I'll say again: you might as well just come out and tell me why."

  The asshole took a deep breath, then closed his eye, raised his right eyebrow and quoted: "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

  Ty forced himself to stop his teeth from grinding. God almighty, how he wanted to rip this kid apart. "So that's why you beat Celine and the others? An 'eye for an eye'?"

  The motherfucker's eye opened, fixed on Ty, and the sheriff could see plainly in this moment that it was utterly devoid of sanity. "What about Jason Emblock?" The sheriff asked. "Celine's boyfriend? You know him? Did he come after you and maybe you had to take him out of the equation?"

  The brow f
urrowed, and for the first time, the only thing the sheriff noted on the other man's face was confusion. "The missing soldier?" He said, then shook his head. "Never even met the man." His voice dropped to a quieter volume. "I have shown mercy thus far in not taking a life, but make no mistake; I have spoken, and will continue to speak… for those who cannot speak for themselves. And I will do so until my voice is heard."

  The sheriff sighed, nodding, and scooted out his chair. He stood, walked around the table, and grasped Connor hard about the neck. "You're a fucking loon," he said, leaning down an inch from the shithead's face. "And your bullshit dogma resulted in a lot of pain for someone I happen to care very much about." The bastard was turning red now, his one good eye bulging slightly, wheezing noises escaping his throat. "It's all I can do not to stuff my foot up your ass right this second." Connor was squirming in his chair, the right side of his mouth opening and closing slightly as he tried desperately to gulp air. "As it stands I'll just have to take comfort in the fact that you'll be getting strange cock stuffed up your ass for a nice long time. 'Penal' system's gonna take on a whole new meaning for you."

  Ty shoved the fuckhead's neck back as he let go, and didn't even try to hide his smile as he walked to the door.

  The sheriff could hear Connor taking deep, ragged breaths as the interview room door closed behind him. The sound was replaced by another: the tootling of his desk telephone. Ty crossed the room into his office and picked up. CJ's voice, drowsy and thick, poured through: "Hey, it's me. Got the info..." There was a pause, then: "Stuff's comin' through tomorrow night, at the Bolt Cutter. Midnight. You might only get one shot at this okay? So, you know, make it count."

  The line went dead. Ty smiled as he replaced the receiver. A needling concern had been working at the back of his mind all day: If CJ had learned of Connor's arrest before sharing what he knew, he might have withheld the information, believing that the sheriff had no leverage over him. Luckily though, CJ spilled the beans before finding out about the shithead's arrest. Today had turned out to be a great day.

  ***

  It was raining outside the Slow N Go truck stop.

  CJ stood inside a phone booth near the restaurant's front door. The hazy downfall misted the air, giving the not-yet-dark sky and parking lot a dream-like quality. Of course, most of that was probably the H.

  He had spent the afternoon feeling like shit. Dopesick, yes, but nervous as hell about making the phone call. Boil had wanted CJ to meet with the sheriff again to give the news, like at the junkyard, but there was no way—the old law dog would see right through CJ and he knew it. So he had rehearsed what he would say all afternoon, and when he had gotten to the truck stop the first thing he did was shoot up.

  Then he had worked up his courage enough to call, but there had been no answer. What he had felt like doing next was going back to the box truck, leaning back the seat, and drifting off to la-la land. What he had done instead was go inside the restaurant, down three cups of coffee and try to convince himself that his life wasn't a complete pile of shit. With any luck, today's haul—six mixing vats and some weird lab machines—represented the last run he would make for the kid. Supposedly, the little shithead had figured out what the boss needed him to, and now it was all about production. Maybe, just maybe once Boil had what he wanted, he would loosen the death grip he had around CJ's balls.

  When he had come back out to the phone booth, a faint drizzle had begun. Parked semis loomed in the haze like sleeping dinosaurs. CJ entered the booth once again and dialed.

  This time Sheriff Barclay answered on the first ring. "Hey, it's me," CJ said. "Got the info…" he looked out from the booth across the restaurant doors, toward the corner of the building. A man stood there in the dimness, mostly silhouette. He was tall and lean, wearing a cowboy hat and boots, staring right at the booth. Right at CJ.

  "Tomorrow night, at the Bolt Cutter," CJ continued, still watching the mystery man watching him. "Midnight. You might only get one shot at this okay? So, you know, make it count." CJ glanced away from the tall figure to replace the phone receiver. When he turned back, the man was gone. Right where he had been standing, there was a black bird. A crow.

  That shit is fuckin' with my head. I don't normally hallucinate.

  CJ exited the booth. As he did, that crazy-ass bird cawed, took flight, and shot straight towards CJ's face. He ducked as the freaky winged shit flapped right over his head. "Son of a bitch!" he blurted. He looked up, squinting in the drizzle, but the bird was gone. Shaking his head he pulled up his hood, wriggled in response to a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, and walked back to his truck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Their prey had been hiding in the tree since Mother Moon first appeared this night.

  It was wounded. Droplets of blood had pattered the loam, and she had lapped them up eagerly. After a while, though, the divine essence had no longer flowed. Her brothers and sisters continued hunting, once again leaving her to wait, and wait she did— stalking through the nearby wood, scenting the air for any threat or potential food.

  There was a scraping sound, followed by a crash and a thud. She raised her muzzle to the sky and emitted a long call. Then she sped back to the tree, where she found it wriggling in pain at the base of the timber. It was a pale, sickly thing. Thin, mewling, and writhing in misery. Kicking…

  Kicking with its two legs.

  It was an other. Others hunted her kind, but tonight the hunter had become the prey. Her pack soon arrived. An impatient packmate sniffed at the prize but the snarling alpha sent the offender skulking away.

  "Baby…"

  The alpha locked his jaws over the pale other's neck, and the divine essence flowed. Soon, the kicking stopped. Some of the others joined, selecting a section of the prey and rending flesh. It was her turn. She chose a piece of thigh, stretched her maw wide, and closed on the yielding meat. Her packmates crowded in, jostling her.

  "Celine baby, wake up!"

  She was pulled from the dream, fluttering eyes gazing up at her mother, who was still shaking her shoulder.

  "You overslept, sweetie."

  Celine looked at the clock. Shit! If she didn't hurry she'd be late for breakfast with Ty. Mom left the room. Celine hopped up and ran into the bathroom. No time for a shower. Fuck it, she'd just wear a ball cap. As she stood looking at her reflection, her mind flashed quickly to the dream. It had already begun to fade, but she remembered just enough. She remembered feeding, not on an animal this time, but on a human.

  Turning away from the mirror, she whipped her pajama shirt over her head.

  ***

  Twenty minutes later Celine was in the Wayside, sitting across from the sheriff. They weren't seated at the booth where Jason had fucked her, thank God. The two of them had downed half their coffees by the time their food arrived. The nice thing about working at a diner was that your coworkers knew what you liked to eat and how you liked it, but Celine had surprised their server Cindy by ordering steak and eggs, with the steak rare. For whatever reason, it was what her body had wanted. Ty had started off by asking about Kyra. Celine had visited her yesterday—she was doing good, all things considered.

  The sheriff was glad and said he would look in on her. He then assured her that he hadn't forgotten about Jason, and that he was in constant contact with CID. They would let him know as soon as they heard anything. Celine had acknowledged, then asked about Ty's bathroom remodel. He told her it was just a few days from being finished as she cut a piece of steak and stuffed it into her mouth.

  Jesus, that's good. She thought, her mind returning once again to the dream. So what? It didn't mean anything, not really. Jason had told her to be aware of her dreams, of voices in her head… but Jason worried too much. Her dream wasn't the same thing.

  She needed to get her mind off of this crap. Returning her attention to the sheriff, who was dousing his scrambled eggs in Tabasco, she said "I know why you asked me here, you know."

  "Is that so?"
Ty stopped pouring, considered the eggs for a second and then continued his hot sauce assault.

  "You brought me here because state police are coming this morning to haul Dickhead away." Now that she could actually remember the asshole's name, she found she didn't want to say it.

  The sheriff finally stopped with the Tabasco. His plate now looked like a crime scene. "Well now, you would be partially correct in that." He looked to her and smiled, stacking wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. She loved it when he smiled, and felt that it was something he did much too rarely. "But there was something else as well." Celine held out her hand for the Tabasco and Ty handed it over. His eyes flicked back to his meal, and those creases disappeared. Celine wondered what was coming as she began drenching her eggs in the hot sauce. "I wanted to talk to you about the other day, about that dust-up with ol' Dickhead…"

  Now it was her turn to smile, though her eyebrows arched upward. Ty's voice dropped and his gaze returned to her— steady but soft, caring. "When I pulled you off of him, it seemed like you were... gone. What had taken over in your absence was rage, pure and simple."

  Celine started to speak but Ty held up a hand. "Sometimes you've got a short fuse. Hell, a lot of the time you remind me of… myself at your age. But if law enforcement is truly something you're interested in I want you to understand: what I do for a living is vital, and it's rewarding. I work an honest day for honest pay but it takes a certain… mindset. A certain temperament. Even with that temperament, if you're not careful it can catch up to you. It catches up to the best of us."

  "You don't think I can do it?" Celine asked, trying to hide the irritation in her voice.

  "I didn't say that," Ty answered in a quiet tone. "All I'm saying is you gotta keep your head on straight at all times. If you don't it can cost you your life or the life of someone you love. I say this because more than anything, I don't ever want to see any more harm come to you."

  She remained quiet, unsure how to answer. Ty's eyes had begun to water; he opened his mouth as if to say something else, then simply offered a smile and turned his attention back to breakfast.