Daniel led Jake toward the road and the trees beyond it. They walked along a chain link fence until they were hidden from the people on the beach and in the park. Daniel handed the garbage bag to Jake, then set his palms on the top bar of the four-foot-high fence and vaulted onto the grass on the other side. Jake handed the bag back to him and followed suit. Daniel guided him onto a craggy dirt path that afforded them a panoramic view of the lake, and Jake realized they stood near a cliff’s edge.
“We’re thirty feet up and the water below is only four feet deep, so watch your step.”
“I intend to.” Jake gazed over the curved edge at the murky green water.
“You can see Canada on the other side,” Daniel said, pointing at the water.
Jake squinted, and the hazy image of a skyline came into view on the horizon. Then a horizontal bolt of lightning ripped the sky.
“We can see their storms, and they can see ours. I guess that brings us closer together. Come on, this way.”
Daniel led Jake up a steep dirt incline until they stood on grass again, looking down at two rock walls angled to form a giant V in the wet, rocky sand. Powerful waves smashed the shale embankments and the sand, then receded.
“Where are we going?” Jake said.
“I’m taking you to the only monster I know.”
Jake glimpsed what appeared to be a large five-foot-high opening at the bottom, facing the lake itself.
A cave.
Daniel hopped onto a ledge below them and then onto another below that. Jake did the same. Halfway down, Daniel took out his wallet and set it on the rocks, then peeled off his clothes to his underwear and shoved everything into the bag. “Stuff anything you don’t want to get wet in here.”
Jake stripped to his briefs and deposited his clothing inside the bag with Daniel’s gear. He followed Daniel down to the last level of shale, where they watched the water recede.
“We can run almost to the entrance,” Daniel said, “but the waves will catch us before we can climb in. Keep your hands in front of you, or you’ll get all scratched up on the shale. Ready?”
Jake looked above them. The limbs of trees growing beyond the cliff’s edge obscured the darkening sky.
“Just a minute.” He scrambled back to the top and crouched behind the edge. Tree roots and thick clumps of grass dangled around him. He scanned the park in the distance. Two different groups—one family and half a dozen teenagers—cooked food on communal brick grills. Four vehicles besides Daniel’s Impala occupied the parking area. A twenty-something couple walked hand in hand alongside the fence they had scaled.
“What are you doing?” Daniel said beside him.
“I got Abby killed today. I can’t take that chance with you, especially after seeing your family. I want to make sure we weren’t followed. If we go into that cave, we’ll be sitting ducks when we come out.”
Minutes passed. No other vehicles entered the park. Jake detected no movement in the trees.
“Come on, man,” Daniel said. “There’s no one out there but us injuns.”
Nodding, Jake said, “Roger that.”
They climbed back down, and Daniel handed the garbage bag to Jake. “You carry this,” he said.
They waited for a wave to crash into the rocks, and as soon as the water receded, they leapt onto the sand and sprinted across the shale base. They reached the cliff face, and Daniel clambered up the shale. Jake heard the roar of rushing water behind them. He threw the garbage bag over Daniel’s head and shoved the man forward. Daniel scurried up the four feet of rock into the cave’s mouth just as cold water slammed into Jake, smashing him against the rocks. Shale scraped his chest and face, but the cold water numbed the pain. The water jerked him back, and he clawed at the shale in vain. Daniel turned and reached out with one hand, but the water dragged Jake fifteen feet away from the rocks. Odors he’d never smelled before clogged his nostrils, and he realized that he reeked of Lake Erie.
The water buffeted him, and he rose on the crest of another wave, which rushed toward the craggy rocks. He flailed his arms and kicked his legs, trying to control his trajectory, which proved as useless as trying to control his velocity. Jake felt himself being turned sideways and glimpsed Daniel’s frantic expression as the water hurled him at the rocks. He absorbed the initial impact with his left shoulder and cried out. The water hammered at him, rolling his body, and he fell into the cave at Daniel’s feet and expelled lake water from his lungs. Coughing, he pulled long strands of mucus from his nose.
“You’re okay,” Daniel said.
“If you say so.” Jake’s throat ached as he spat foul-tasting water.
Daniel helped him to his feet, and they stood silhouetted in the dying sunlight. Daniel picked up the garbage bag and took out two flashlights. “You’ll want your camera for this.”
Jake fished in the garbage bag for his cell phone and found it.
Daniel powered on his flashlight, and the intense beam played over the moist walls. “Come on.”
Jake followed him once more, and as they penetrated the darkness, the stone floor rose and the ceiling grew higher. He aimed his flashlight at stalactites and black shapes clinging to them: bats. “How do you know about this place?”
“Everyone on the reservation knows about it. This is part of our heritage.” He aimed his beam at a section of flat rock wall covered with colorful markings. “As kids, me and my friends used to come here to drink beer and smoke cigarettes. As an adult, I have far more interest in it.”
Jake stepped closer to the flat rock and stared at the mural on its surface.
“The original artwork is carved into the rock,” Daniel said. “The colors faded a long time ago, but artists on the reservation restore it every few years.”
The mural started at their knees and ended above their heads and stretched ten feet from side to side. On the left-hand side, Jake saw the cliff they had just stood on. A muscular Indian warrior rode a white stallion that reared up on its hind legs. A woman with white skin and yellow hair was draped over the horse in front of the warrior, her hands bound.
Jake moved to his right, revealing more of the painting with his flashlight. Lake Erie stretched before him, its gray-green water unmistakable. He stopped moving and gazed at the artwork’s central feature: an enormous sea monster—a cross between an octopus and a bird—that beckoned to the warrior with massive tentacles and wings. Its eyes were black and rimmed with blood, its sharklike teeth the size of the warrior’s head.
“Say hello to Avadiim,” Daniel said.
CHAPTER
10
Jake studied the mural. “Avadiim?”
“Yes,” Daniel said. “I guess you could call him the great god of Lake Erie.”
Jake gestured at the Indian warrior. “Who’s the dragon slayer?”
“He was called Horned Sparrow. I take it you’re no expert on the Seneca Nations?”
“That’s a bet you’d win.” Jake photographed the mural from several angles.
“The Senecas were great warriors in this area. Great conquerors. During the Seven Years War, they helped the British take Fort Niagara from the French, and during the American Revolution, they raided colonial settlements. One of their fiercest chiefs was even known as Red Jacket because he wore the jacket of a British officer he served under. General Washington sent General Sullivan with four thousand men to solve the Seneca problem. Sullivan’s Expedition drove the Senecas back to Fort Niagara, where they were defeated. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Would it be politically incorrect for me to say that what goes around, comes around?”
“The Senecas signed treaty after treaty and settled along the Buffalo Creek, Tonawanda Creek, and Cattaraugus Creek, which all became reservations like this one. Horned Sparrow didn’t want to settle down on a reservation. He took pride in his heritage as a Seneca warrior, and he remembered the stories he heard as a boy— of Avadiim, the great war god of Lake Erie. Late one night, he snuck into Jamestown, where h
e kidnapped the daughter of a grocer. He brought her to the cliff above us on horseback and called for Avadiim to accept her as his sacrifice in exchange for aiding the Senecas in a war against the United States. Some believe that Avadiim rose from the lake’s bottom and accepted the sacrifice. Others think Horned Sparrow just threw her into the water, where she drowned.”
“What happened to Horned Sparrow?”
“He never got to lead his campaign against the whites, and Avadiim didn’t do much to help him. The soldiers caught him praying on the cliff the next day. They tied him up and dragged him all the way to Fort Niagara. When they arrived, he had no skin on his bones, and they left his corpse outside the fort’s walls for the dogs to eat. The body of the grocer’s daughter was never found.”
“How old is this painting?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it was here when I was a boy. And it was here when my father was a boy. And when my grandfather was a boy.”
“So maybe a hundred years. This may not even be the cliff where the soldiers found him.”
Daniel shrugged. “True.”
“How integral is Avadiim to actual Seneca lore?”
“It doesn’t exist in our written legends, just as part of our oral history. I guess you could say it’s the equivalent of the bogeyman: a phantom designed to frighten children, possibly to keep them from venturing too close to the water.”
Jake gestured at the monster. “This looks like a hybrid of an octopus and an eagle. I’m no geologist, but I doubt very much that octopi ever lived in Lake Erie.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“So it’s likely that whoever painted this had seen an octopus somewhere else. Which makes me believe the painting was created long after Horned Sparrow’s death. Something else puzzles me. I’ve seen plenty of drawings and paintings of similar creatures attacking sea vessels, but they were always giant squids, I assume because it’s easier to draw five tentacles than eight. Why did this artist go for the full monte? And why did Abby think it was important for me to see this?”
“I don’t remember ever telling Abby about this painting, and I’m pretty sure she never crawled into this cave.”
Jake returned his cell phone to the garbage bag. “I don’t believe she knew this painting existed, just that she had a sense it did, and she connected it to my investigation.”
“You mean she connected Avadiim to the things you say you saw, without knowing there was a legend about Avadiim?”
Jake nodded. “The creatures I saw weren’t octopi; they were humanoid. But they did have suckers on their fingers.” He faced the mural again. “I’m wondering if this isn’t somehow a metaphor for what she wanted me to discover.”
“A metaphor for what, though?”
Eight tentacles. Eight old men. Avadiim. He looked at Daniel. “I have no idea.”
The sun had set when they hunched at the cave’s mouth, and the water that splashed on them felt even colder in the evening breeze.
“You still worried that someone might be out there?”
“Yes,” Jake said. “Let me go first.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.”
Jake waited for a wave to crash against the rocks and recede, and then he jumped onto the wet shale bottom and ran across the rocky sand. The water struck his feet as he reached the point where the two rock faces formed the point of the V and quickly rose to his thigh, but with none of the ferocity with which the waves pummeled the cave. Holding the garbage bag, he climbed the embankment and waved to Daniel, who made the same journey. They climbed halfway up the cliff, where Daniel removed two towels from the bag, and they dried themselves off and dressed in the cold air.
On the drive back, Daniel said, “I sure hope Abby didn’t get killed over that mural.”
“She wasn’t killed for anything more than being with me at the wrong time. Nothing personal, but the sooner I get away from you, the better I’ll feel.”
“Nothing personal, but the sooner you get away from me, the better I’ll feel.”
Daniel pulled into his driveway and they got out.
Jake handed him a business card. “I don’t know if that painting will amount to anything as far as my case goes, but I owe you one. Anytime, anywhere—anything I can do to help you, give me a call. I mean it. And I’d like you to do something else for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I want to cover Abby’s funeral, whatever the expense. Look into the details and get in touch with me, if you don’t mind. If I’m not around for any reason, speak to my assistant.”
Daniel held out his hand. “You got it.”
Jake shook the man’s hand, then got into his SUV and left the reservation.
Jake ate at a McDonald’s and drove back to the inn. He didn’t see how his trip to Western New York had been anything but a waste of his time and Abby Fay’s life. He intended to have a long talk with Laurel about the wild-goose chase she had sent him on and its repercussions. One thing was certain: Reichard and Madigan wanted him dead badly enough to send a hit man after him. He didn’t know the identity of that assassin, and maybe he never would, but he would force the kingmaker and the mayor to pay for Abby’s murder and Marla’s disappearance. And the murder of the woman Madigan had sacrificed.
Sacrifice.
Horned Sparrow had sacrificed a woman to Avadiim, and Madigan had sacrificed one to join Reichard’s club.
Jake pulled into the inn’s parking lot and went inside. No one manned the front counter, but he heard a woman speaking on the phone in the room behind it. He found the stairway before he found the elevator, which was fine by him. Unlocking his door and entering his room, he felt anxious for a good night’s sleep. Moving past the bathroom, he followed the narrow hall to the main room, where he flipped the light switch. A rifle with a silencer on its barrel lay across one of the two beds.
Jake sensed a man moving through the darkness behind him even before he glimpsed him in the mirror over the desk on his right. He instinctively raised his hand before his face in a swatting motion as the wire garrote whistled through the air and caught on his palm. Jake jerked the wire forward even as his assailant attempted to draw his hand to his face. With only seconds to free himself from his assailant’s death grip, he pivoted on one foot and ducked at the same time.
The two men stood five feet apart, crouching like wrestlers poised to strike, and Jake measured his opponent: six feet tall, military crew cut, hard eyes and body, dressed in loose-fitting black clothes. An assassin.
The man who killed Abby.
Jake had made a serious miscalculation in assuming the man had fled the area after the publicity Abby’s murder had no doubt generated.
With his steel-gray eyes betraying no emotion, the man discarded his garrote on the floor and drew a hunting knife with a gleaming, serrated blade from his belt. In that moment, Jake vowed never to travel without firepower again.
The assassin moved in on Jake, swinging the knife in a blur of motion, forcing him into the space between the two queen-sized beds. With limited room to maneuver, Jake backed up against a bedside table. Reaching behind him, he seized the lamp and hurled it at his attacker, who deflected the lamp with his knife. Jake dove onto the far bed, rolled over it, and landed on his feet on the other side. The assassin ran around the bed at a terrific speed. Jake waited until the man rounded the foot of the bed, then dove across the bed once more. As soon as his shoes touched the carpet, he ran for the desk, feigning to his right so the killer would think he was trying to escape through the front door.
The man appeared behind him with lightning speed, and Jake grabbed the wooden chair at the desk with both hands and swung it at the man with all his might. One leg of the chair struck the man’s knife hand, sending the weapon across the room. As a bonus, another leg struck the side of his head.
Luck of the Irish, Jake thought, pulling the chair back for another swing.
The assassin shook his head and focused on Jake. He did not sh
ake the hand that had held the knife. In fact, he did not move it at all but kept his wrist and fingers still.
Maybe I broke it, Jake hoped.
The man turned his body sideways, good hand and feet poised for attack.
Martial artist.
Jake didn’t know what kind—kung fu, karate, tae kwon do. He had never studied any of the techniques but had learned plenty of hand-to-hand combat skills as a cop.
The man cocked his arm and fired his fist at Jake’s head. Jake swung the chair hard, smashing the cherrywood down on the man’s knuckles. The man’s face turned scarlet, and Jake hoped he had broken this hand as well.
As Jake pulled the chair back for another swing, the man aimed a powerful kick at the underside of the seat that shattered the furniture and left Jake holding nothing but the chair’s back and hind legs. Using both hands, Jake drove the remaining wood straight into the man’s face, shattering the chair’s frame and the man’s nose at the same time.
While the assassin appeared dazed, Jake threw the two pieces of the chair aside and leapt onto the closest bed. He seized the rifle in both hands, threw his back against the wall, and aimed the gun at Abby’s killer.
The assassin leapt snarling onto the bed, and Jake knew the rifle was unloaded even before he squeezed the trigger and heard nothing but a hollow click. The man dropped low on his right leg and used his left leg to sweep Jake’s feet out from under him, dropping Jake. The man lunged for Jake’s throat, and Jake raised the rifle sideways in both hands to hold him back. Protecting his fingers, the man pressed his palms against the rifle’s barrel and stock, close to Jake’s hands, and forced the rifle against Jake’s Adam’s apple.
Jake pushed back but the man was too strong. Feeling intense pressure against his throat, Jake tried to twist his body, but the man had pinned him to the bed’s headboard with such force he could no longer breathe.
The man’s face filled his vision, his eyes blazing with anger and his ruptured nose bleeding. He gritted his teeth, his own breathing coming out in deep bursts, and Jake watched a bubble of blood in the man’s nostril expand and shrink, expand and shrink, threatening to burst but never reaching that climax. Desperate to look at anything besides the man’s terrible face, Jake raised his gaze to the stucco ceiling, which went out of focus. Why did he have to die before he had a chance to figure out the key to the cabal of old men behind Marla’s disappearance?
Cosmic Forces: Book Three in The Jake Helman Files Series Page 11
