The Temple

by Heather Marie Adkins

  Theresa had a lot of strong opinions. She wouldn’t buy products from a company that didn’t do something good for the environment. When her last car company took the government bailout, she sold that vehicle and bought one from the only American company that hadn’t taken government money. Meat was an absolute no-no, and she bought her eggs from a homegrown farmer who lived down the road—not from a commercial hatchery.

  What really got my mom worked up was medicine. She was gung-ho, all natural when it came to healing remedies. If I fell and scraped a knee once I did it five hundred times when I was a girl—and every time, my mother would slather the area in a sweet smelling mixture that resembled pesto. Surprisingly, it always healed fast.

  The moral of the story is: my family never visits doctors.

  I opened a reply and typed, “I’m sure it’s nothing. Maybe she was just accompanying a friend. Hasn’t Marsha been having problems with her cervix?” And left it at that. My mother wasn’t one to keep secrets.

  Melissa strolled towards the Temple about quarter ’til four, her petite body encased in black pants and a sweater two sizes too big hanging halfway to her knees. I met her at the door with a mustered smile. Her thick hair was piled messily atop her head. The girl didn’t bother with makeup, and she was still a knockout.

  My own outfit was an oversized hoodie and blue jeans. I hadn’t bothered dressing up for work, knowing Brett wouldn’t be in.

  “Hey, kiddo. How was your shift?”

  “Boring,” I answered, having already vowed not to mention my first foray into magical workings. “There was very little noise from the hunt”—I put bunny ears around the word—“tonight. Any idea why?”

  She came through the door, stomping leaves and mud from her boots before stepping on the stone floor. “Oh, yeah, they’ve got theories. Middle of the month is supposedly a slow time. The Hunt doesn’t ride as hard, the leader needs a break, they lay low before taking someone, etc etc etc. Small town paranoia hits a high.”

  I followed her to the office after locking the doors, taking one of the chairs. She popped her flat soled boots off and perched her tiny feet on top of the desk. “What’s your take?”

  “I’ve heard the things you’ve heard. It sounds rough,” she answered honestly. “The howls, the thundering like hooves, the yells, the wind…” she trailed off, biting her lower lip, her eyes far off. “I know people who have lost their loved ones to the Hunt. When I first came here, it seemed unreal. A myth gotten out of hand, but the longer I stay, the more I believe.”

  “Really? The girl who refuses to believe the Hunt got our guards?” I eyed her skeptically. Her presence was a balm to my battered soul. I wanted to climb all over her like a monkey, and pretend my divination hadn’t gone sour and my mother wasn’t secretly attending a gynecologist.

  Melissa’s sapphire blue eyes settled on mine with brevity. “You can try to go about a logical explanation all you want, Vale, but nothing will fit.”

  “What about a serial killer?” I asked defensively. The fluorescent light of the office was killing my head.

  She shook her head vehemently. “A serial killer that doesn’t leave a mark? Doesn’t take anything from the body? I’ve never heard of a person able to kill someone by taking their soul.”

  “Have they done autopsies on any of the victims?”

  Melissa gave me an indignant look. “Vale, this is a small town, not a backwards one. Of course they did autopsies. All of the victims were deemed dead of heart failure.” I nodded. I knew that. She went silent, bobbing her feet gently on the desk, her eyes focused on something far away.

  I didn’t want to believe in the Hunt, and was damn determined to prove it wrong. I changed the subject. “I saw Anya last night. She said some weird things.”

  "I haven’t been able to contact Rebecca. She’s too out of my reach. What did Anya have to say?”

  “She told me not to taunt Jordan—”

  Melissa cut me off, laughing. “But that’s the fun stuff!”

  I grinned. “You don’t have to tell me, I get off on it. I asked her why and she said ’temper, temper, daddy’s got a temper don’t tell him your weaknesses’. She’d just mentioned an abusive brother, so I don’t know if she was talking about Jordan or the brother.”

  “Jordan strikes me as an abusive asshole,” Melissa mused. “Uncle Remus said his wife never wears shorts or t-shirts, and she goes around in sunglasses and heavy make up. You don’t suppose he beats her, do you?”

  “He’s a chauvinistic pig, it wouldn’t surprise me.” We stared at each other for a moment, Melissa biting her lip. I was starting to realize it was her signature move. “What do you say to paying her a visit one evening while he’s working?”

  Melissa nodded slowly, one lock of blonde falling over her forehead. She swiped it away. “How about Saturday? We’re both off.”

  Nodding, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of foreboding.

  *********

  After dropping Melissa’s black SUV at HQ, I drove the Coop home in the dark, my headlights slicing through the fog. No one in my complex was stirring, their mix of vehicles sitting damp in the lot. Seven dark doors faced the street, porch lights off. I was on the end, a lucky one with more windows and just a teensy more space. I’d already met most of the people I lived with, an eclectic bunch.

  Mrs. McCoy was beside me, with her huge inheritance, a wall full of romance novels, and a spoiled Lhasa Apso named Frufru. Two university students, engaged to be married shared the other end unit. In between were two families, each with 2 kids (boy and girl) and oddly similar golden retriever dogs, a single middle aged black lady who taught at the local grade school and had an apartment full of cats, and a thirty something call girl I’d seen only in passing.

  Mrs. McCoy is the one who dropped the bomb she was a call girl.

  I climbed the two stone steps leading to my postage stamp porch, my keys jingling as I searched for the right one, and I stopped in my tracks when I noticed the slit between jamb and door. It wasn’t latched. Oh, god, Addie! was my first thought. I backed away from the offending crack, noting the damage where someone had tried real hard to get in…and succeeded.

  Mentally going over my list of neighbors, I rushed to the door of the call girl, someone else who probably kept strange hours. Pushing her bell, I prayed she was home, my eyes darting between her bright blue door and my own.

  She opened it in a pair of fishnet hose, red silk bra, and matching panties. A cigarette dangled from her equally red lips. She narrowed her smoky eyes at me from an astonishingly beautiful face. “Yeah?”

  “Someone’s broke into my flat,” I gasped out, forcing myself not to take off running into the woman’s apartment. “Can I use your phone?”

  The willowy girl waved me in with red claws, taking a drag from her cancer stick as she led me to the phone. While I gave my info to 999, I studied her out of the corner of my eye. She was a man’s wet dream come to life. Her body dipped and curved in all the right places. Long chestnut brown hair was elegantly curled and pinned back behind her ears on both sides of her face in a hairstyle better suited for the fifties, but it looked natural on her. Her face was heart shaped and perfectly made up. I lost the majority of my self esteem sharing a room with her.

  Her apartment was as different from mine as it could be, considering it was the exact same layout. She had painted. Her walls were all soft, sexy shades of red and maroon. The expensive living room set was shiny black leather, and the walls were covered in black and white photos of architectural wonders like the Eiffel Tower and that really cool building in St Petersburg of which the name I can never remember. I always call it “the birthday cake” building.

  She tossed out a hand carelessly when I hung up. “I’m Bella Korikova. Mrs. McCoy told me your name is Vale?”

  There was only a trace of an accent in her voice, like someone who had worked hard to lose it. Shaking what felt like a limp noodle, I nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry to bother you this lat
e.”

  Bella shrugged, a nonchalant move that looked sexy on her. “Not an issue, darling, I had a client just leave.”

  “So, I guess you guys didn’t see or hear anything? At my flat I mean?” I asked sheepishly. She rewarded me with a wolfish smile, taking a deep drag from her cigarette and blowing the smoke before answering.

  “No, darling, we wouldn’t have noticed anything. We were a little busy.”

  Chapter 7

  Inspector Hammond was a stereotypical officer of the law if there ever was one. A few too many powdered doughnuts could have forged the belly that hung heavily over his shiny black belt, maybe peppered with black coffee made happy with sugar. His double chin shook when I took his hand and introduced myself, and I had to hide a smile at the porno ’stache on his top lip.

  “Which unit is yours, Miss Avari?” he asked, hefting his belt over his dark blue uniform. The buttons of his pressed jacket shirt were straining in protest.

  “The end,” I told him, gesturing to my semi-open door. The Inspector gave a lingering look to Bella, standing in her doorway covered with a transparent red hanky she called a robe, and headed after me.

  A tall, thin man with a thoroughly unremarkable face came striding from the police car, a flashlight in one hand. He clicked it on as he pulled up next to me and stuck out his other hand to halt my forward motion. “Miss, if you could just wait by the police vehicle please, we are going to walk through your flat.”

  I glanced towards my darkened apartment, bile rising in my throat at the thought of a stranger in my home. “If you see my cat, a little black one, would you let me know she’s okay?”

  With a nod, he followed his overweight partner to my porch. I chewed on my already bitten nails while leaning against the police cruiser. All bubbly and long, like an English taxicab, it was very different from the Crown Victoria and Chevy Impala cars used back home. I watched the beam of the thin man’s flashlight appear and disappear as they made their way through my downstairs and headed up to my bedroom.

  Who the hell would break into my apartment? One of the greatest things about moving to Quicksilver was the lack of petty crime in the area.

  My heart jolted painfully a moment later when Lanky came rushing from the apartment, a limp ball of black fur in his arms. His dark eyes were kind. “Miss, if you’ll get in the vehicle, I’ll put her in your lap and get you to the veterinarian.”

  I burst into tears.

  *********

  Dr. Dashing was just that…dashing. And very much asleep when Officer O’Malley gave an authoritarian knock on the good doctor’s door at six in the morning. Rubbing sleep from his face, the vet took one look at the pathetic bundle in my arms and waved us in, bright green eyes finally open beneath his tousled dark hair.

  “This lady’s home was broken into, Dr. D, and I found the puss unconscious in front of an empty bowl.” He pulled the unfamiliar glass dish from his back pocket, wrapped in a plastic baggie. “If it will help.”

  I wanted to kiss the man’s toes for remembering all the bases of an animal poisoning.

  While Lanky followed Dr. Dashing to the darkened recesses of the house, Dr. Dashing’s wife, Emilia, took my hand and led me to their floral patterned living room. “Oh, dear, terribly dreadful business. David is a lovely doctor, she’ll be right as rain. Let me get you some tea, dear, you’re so pale.” She reminded me of a hummingbird, flitting about and fluffing the throw pillows behind me. I opened my mouth to politely decline her offer of tea but she was gone in a swirl of long white nightgown.

  I hate tea, yet I moved to England. Again, I should probably get my head examined.

  Time passed too slowly. It didn’t occur to me I’d left Inspector Hammond to fend for himself at my apartment, or that I needed to worry about what might have been taken or how he would lock up when he finished. I sipped the white blossom tea Mrs. Dashing placed in my trembling hands and waited for news of my little girl.

  Mrs. Dashing was a kind of plain-jane, but it was her very plainness that made her beautiful. Her brown hair was an average shade, but shiny and healthy, falling to her shoulders in bouncy waves. Her skin was pale, her cheeks rosy. I think it was her kindness and the lovely smile she could pour on me that made her pretty.

  The sun rose steadily outside the picture windows facing me, illuminating a garden in a riot of autumn colors. I could make out a playground beyond the jungle of plants and wondered if the Dashings had a passel of little ones sound asleep upstairs. Addie hated kids.

  Emilia brought me several information sheets which I filled out on autopilot. Adiphine, nickname Addie, aged 3, domestic long hair, country of origin, the US. Like me. No prior illnesses, no known allergies, yearly shots on time. The only major medical emergency was when she got into Dane’s stash of ritual pot as a kitten. Mrs. Dashing zipped in and out of the room periodically, her every appearance startling me as it would a trauma victim. I left many squiggly lines of black ink on the pages.

  Dr. Dashing came from the back of the house with a smile on his face and I felt my heart rate drop from it’s frantic pace. He sat beside me, smelling like hand sanitizer. “Addie’s going to be fine, Miss Avari. I induced vomiting with some activated charcoal and was able to get her system flushed.” Relief flooded me like light after a dark night. He cleared his throat, sitting forward with his elbows on his knees. I’d never visited a veterinarian and had chit chat while he wore green flannel pajama pants under his white terry cloth robe. Our old vet back home had worn beige corduroys and button down shirts; usually what looked to be the same two. “It appears to be that someone poisoned Addie. Without running tests from the lab, which could take days, I can’t say what was used. What I can guarantee is that she’s going to be fine. Whatever it was must have been in a very small amount. She’s alert and walking, and yowling something terrible.” He laughed. “I think she wants to go home.”

  Someone poisoned my cat. Cold fear stopped my breath, but I shook Dr. Dashing’s hand numbly and pocketed the little blue business card he gave me. Mrs. Dashing came into the room with a cardboard kitty carrier thrashing from one hand and a plastic bag in the other.

  “Feed Addie one can of the food I’m giving you twice a day until you run out. It’ll continue to clear her system and get her the nutrients and liquid she needs. If you need anything else at all, give me a ring.” He patted my shoulder as I hoisted Addie’s box and with a tired smile, I left.

  “I’m so sorry, Addie,” I whispered to her over the hum of the engine, Lanky respectfully quiet at the wheel. I clutched her box, my fingers wiggling through the air holes. She licked them with her sand paper tongue. “My poor baby.”

  My heart ached with the thought of what could have happened. The minute I stepped inside my thoughtfully locked apartment, where Inspector Hammond’s card was waiting on my kitchen counter, I called my landlord.

  Addie was swishing her way out of the carrier, miffed, when the older woman answered, her clipped tones coming loud and clear across the line from London. “Yes?”

  “Ms. Johns? This is Vale Avari, I live at 101 Old Station Road in Quicksilver?”

  “Yes, Vale, how are you?” I’d never met the woman, but she’d always sounded hurried on the phone, as if she couldn’t be bothered.

  “Ms. Johns, someone broke into my flat last night while I was at work.” She gave an expected gasp and an unintelligible sympathetic sound. “I was wondering if you would give me permission to install some kind of alarm?”

  “Of course, dear, you can install whatever you think necessary. I’ll pay half, just take it out of next month’s rent, hmm?”

  Saying our goodbyes, I hunted for the phone book and found the number for the only alarm company in town. I absently rubbed Addie’s head while she solicited for food on the counter, the jarring ring of the phone in my ear. I arranged for a man to come and install my new system that evening, fed Addie, and fell into bed, pulling the pillow over my head and letting a few tears slide on down.

&n
bsp; Chapter 8

  “It’s simple to use,” the gruff voiced man from A-1 Security said, flipping open the cover on the key pad. “I’ve programmed it with 0501 like you asked”—my birthday—“and when you come in the door, you have thirty seconds to enter your code before the alarm will ring and the company will send reinforcements. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I nodded vigorously, brushing my damp hair out of my eyes. I wished he’d get on with it so I could dry my hair before the next millennium.

  I showed him out fifteen minutes later and went through the motions of getting ready for work. Running into town under a cloud-covered sky, I spent an exorbitant amount on a rain coat and Wellington boots at a little shop and returned home as the sprinkles were starting. At 930, I left, purposefully setting the alarm.

  The sky was trying to drown the earth. I took the road to the Temple slowly, my lowlights on and my wipers squeaking in protest at the flood. The gravel lot in the woods was a swamp of clay. I locked my car in the scandalous hope that Jordan would be umbrella-less when he came out to get in the Coop, and wrinkled my nose at the idea of his dirty boots on my floorboard. It was only too bad I wouldn’t be around when he was fighting to get out of the rain; it might make up for a muddy car.

  In my newly purchased rain gear, I flung open an umbrella and trudged as fast as my legs would take me without running. I was ten minutes early because I’d been antsy to get out of my violated apartment. Unfortunately, this was one thing that would make the jackass happy.

  Jordan met me at the door. “Torches are going out again tonight.”

  “It’s the ghost. Anya Korbori. She’s a girl guard that went missing about ten years ago. I’ve been meaning to ask you about her.” I watched his cold, handsome face tighten. Interesting. “Did you know her?”

  “I knew her. She’s haunting the temple, you say?”

  Pulling my black flats out of my Wellies, I slid the rubber boots against the wall inside the door. “Yeah, I’ve been able to talk to her a couple times. It’s apparently tough for her to hold herself together. I usually find that happens when the victim’s death was violent or self-inflicted.” I shrugged out of my jacket and tossed it on the metal hook above my boots.