by Terri Reid
Wrapping his arms around his legs, he bent his head forward and wept like a child.
Chapter Four
Detective Sean O’Reilly’s stomach twisted as it did every time he walked past the doors that opened into the lobby of the emergency room of Cook County Hospital. He stepped onto the tiled floor and heard the noises that were unique to a hospital. Soft-soled shoes against linoleum, the murmur of the intercom, the quiet, anguished sobs of family members and the constant beeping of monitoring equipment. Those sounds reminded him of the worst hours of his life.
It had been years since he had carried his sister, Officer Mary O’Reilly, into the hospital with a gunshot to her gut. Years since he and the rest of his family sat in the waiting room, crying and praying that she would not die. Years since he discovered she had thrown herself between him and a bullet with his name on it.
She was fine now, he reminded himself, more than fine. She was on her honeymoon in Scotland with a guy who worshipped the ground she walked on, and he’d better keep it that way. Sean smiled slightly. Yeah, things were good with Mary.
He shook off those thoughts as he watched Detective Adrian Williams approach him. Adrian was a behemoth, six feet five inches of solid muscle. He walked like a bodybuilder, Sean thought, with a grin. His damn arms were so muscular he couldn’t rest them at his side, so he looked like he was always carrying some invisible beach ball. Well, a beach ball that weighed 300 pounds.
“Hey, Skinny,” Sean greeted his friend. “How are things in the ‘hood?”
Adrian had worked in the Gang Enforcement Division of the Chicago Police Department for about six months. Before that, he worked with Sean in the Special Crimes Unit. He’d been Sean’s rookie detective and was a quick learner and devoted law-enforcement officer. Sean had beamed like a proud daddy when Adrian had received his promotion.
“Hey, Irish, nice to see you up and sober,” he teased back.
Sean glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s only midnight,” he replied. “The real drinking doesn’t start until two or three.”
Adrian nodded, but the joking disappeared from his voice. “Yeah, well, after what I’ve seen tonight I just might join you.”
Noting the change in his friend’s demeanor, Sean’s smile dropped, and he lowered his voice. “So, what went down?”
“Worse throw down I’ve ever seen,” Adrian said, wiping his hand over his eyes. “O’Reilly, you won’t believe the crime photos. The bodies were hacked to pieces.”
“Hacked?” Sean asked. “Like knives?”
“Uh, uh, had to be bigger than that,” Adrian said. “There were heads laying a couple yards from the bodies they belonged to, and those heads, man, they were sliced clean off. Arms, torsos…laying everywhere. It was bad. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve seen a lot.”
“So, maybe machetes?” Sean asked. “Maybe we got some international throw down going on here?”
“Yeah, could have been a machete,” Adrian said, nodding slowly. “But the perps who used them had to have been on roids.”
“Or high on something,” Sean added. “So have you done any blood work?”
Taking a deep breath, Adrian leaned in a little closer. “Well, if we had arrested someone we would have done blood work. But we’ve got nothing,” he said quietly.
“No perps?”
“We’ve got nothing but a hundred maybe a hundred and twenty dead bodies,” he said. “Two different gangs, almost everyone’s a corpse.”
“Almost?”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I called you in,” he said. “We got this kid, looks like a new recruit, who got there a little late. Probably saved his life. He saw it going down, but he’s not making any sense. I figured if anyone was an expert on not making any sense, it was you.”
“Funny, real funny,” Sean said. “Do you think he’s covering for himself?”
Adrian shook his head. “I found him huddled against an abandoned building, crying his eyes out,” he said. “His hands were ripped to pieces, but he didn’t even seem to notice. He was in shock. And when I told him who I was, he about jumped into my arms he was so happy to see me.”
“Well, Skinny, you are kinda cute,” Sean said.
“Yeah, not that cute,” Adrian replied. “This kid is scared, past scared. And whatever he saw, it doesn’t sound normal to me.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Yeah, they took care of his hands, but it’s his head I’m worried about.”
Sean followed Adrian through the security doors of the emergency room and back into one of the triage rooms. Adrian pushed open the door and stepped inside. “Jamal, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” he said as Sean entered behind him. “Detective Sean O’Reilly.”
“Hey, Jamal,” Sean said, coming up alongside the hospital bed. The kid couldn’t have been more than twelve. His head was pressed against the pillows like he was trying to hide. His eyes were round and wary as he looked beyond Sean, searching the room.
“The place is secure,” Sean reassured him. “We got the hospital on lockdown. Nothing could get this far in.”
The boy relaxed visibly. “They was in the cloud,” he stammered. “They was in the freaking clouds.”
Pulling a chair next to the bed, Sean sat down so Jamal could look at him, face to face. “Why don’t we start from the beginning?” he suggested. “That way, I get a whole picture of what happened and we don’t miss anything important.”
Jamal nodded rapidly. “Yeah, okay,” he said.
“You hungry?” Sean asked him, sitting back against his chair, trying to look relaxed.
“I ain’t ate since supper,” he answered.
Sean smiled at him. “Well, I remember when my brothers and I were your age,” he said. “We’d have to eat every hour or so. I bet the cafeteria has something. What would you like?”
The boy glanced quickly around the room and sunk further into his pillow. “I don’t care,” he whispered.
“Hey, Skinny,” Sean said to Adrian, relieved to see the young boy smile at the name. “How about picking up some food for us?”
Adrian nodded, understanding that a calm and relaxed witness was a better witness. He and Sean had played this routine before, each one getting the chance to be the errand boy. “You want me to get you some food?” he asked and the boy retreated further into his pillow.
“Yeah, and don’t get us that green crap you eat,” Sean replied, sharing a grin and wink with Jamal. “We don’t want salads or vegetables. We want a couple of cheeseburgers and some fries. Right, Jamal?”
Leaning forward, the boy nodded. “Um, right,” he said.
“And if they’ve got those cookies, you know those giant chocolate chip ones,” Sean added, “We want those, too.”
Jamal smile and nodded. “Yeah, that’d be good,” he said.
“What do you want to drink?” Sean asked.
“Chocolate milk?” the boy asked hopefully.
“Oh, yeah, good call,” he replied with a smile. “Chocolate milk — cold chocolate milk. Perfect.”
Sighing loudly, Adrian nodded. “It’s going hurt my heart just getting this for you,” he said.
“Yeah, but you’ll get over it,” Sean teased, and Jamal actually giggled.
Once the door had closed behind Adrian, Sean crossed one leg over the other and stretched out in the chair. He looked at the boy, nervously glancing from the door back to Sean. No, he wasn’t ready yet. He still had to calm down a little. Sean glanced at his watch. It was twelve-thirty. Well, the only thing he had been planning on doing that night was sleep. He had time to kill. “So, while we’re waiting for food, why don’t you tell me what sports you like to play?”
Chapter Five
A few hours later, sitting in his car in the parking lot outside the hospital, Sean studied his notes again and shook his head slowly. “What the hell?” he whispered, and then he picked up his phone and dialed. The call went to voice mail, but Sean hung up and dial
ed again.
“Hello?” a weary voice answered.
“About time you answered your phone,” Sean said.
“Bugger it! Do you know what time it is?” came the slightly irate Scottish-accented voice on the line. “This had better be important.”
“I know what time it is,” Sean replied with a wide smirk on his face. “And if you were back home, it would be about eight o’clock in the morning. What are you doing sleeping the morning away?”
“Piss off,” Professor Ian MacDougal muttered. “I’m going back to sleep.”
“Ian, something’s happened,” Sean stated, his voice going from teasing to serious. “And I need your help.”
Hearing a long sigh, Sean could picture Ian pulling himself out of bed and moving to the computer station he had across his room. Ian was not only the founder and head of the MacDougal Foundation for Paranormal Research but also a Fellow from the University of Edinburgh working through the University of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department on a study of Criminology and Parapsychology. For the past few months he’d been working in Freeport, Illinois, with Sean’s sister, Mary, studying her interaction with ghosts and working with her to solve some of the mysteries that she had encountered.
“Okay, the damn machine is booting,” he growled. “What’s it you need?”
“Okay, I’m going to describe something to you, and then, maybe, you can help me with where to even start looking,” Sean said. “A tall creature, like ten feet tall. Long, sinewy limbs that are so long they drag on the ground with razor-like nails that are so tough that as they are pulled along the asphalt, they spark…”
“Sean, Sean,” Ian said. “I told you to stay out of strange bars when you’re looking for a date. She turned you down, did she?”
“Not funny, Professor, not funny at all,” Sean said. “His clothes are ripped up and thin, like sheets.”
“Shrouds perhaps?” Ian suggested and then he was silent for a moment. “Sean, I see that Gillian is online at the moment. Would you mind if I shared your information with her? She’s some background in legends and such.”
Sean knew that Gillian, Ian’s fiancée, was a researcher, and since she was originally from Ireland, perhaps she would have a different perspective on what was going on.
“No problem,” Sean said. “The more input the better.”
“Okay, I’ve sent her what you described,” he said. “And she wants to know what their faces were like.”
“Faces,” Sean said, scanning his notes. “Oh, yeah, the head guy has a helmet like a reindeer skull.”
Sean could hear Ian typing in the background, pausing and typing again.
“She says it sounds like the Elk King,” Ian said.
“The Elf King?” Sean spat. “Listen, I know I said reindeer, but this guy has nothing to do with Santa Claus.”
Ian chuckled softly. “No, she said the Elk King,” Ian said. “With a ‘K.’ She says he is the leader of the Wild Hunt.”
“The Wild Hunt?” Sean asked slowly, a frisson of trepidation running up his spine.
“Aye, it’s the fae version of a fox hunt,” Ian said, “except the hunters tend to slay any mortals who happen to be in their path or grab them up and take them down to Tír na nÓg with them.”
“Slay as in cut up in pieces?”
“Let me ask.”
Once again, Ian paused to type. “She says their main weapons would be broadswords, so I’ll say yes, that would be right,” Ian replied slowly. “She wants to know why you’re asking about this, Sean, and quite frankly, so do I.”
“Well, as near as I can see,” Sean said, “the South Side of Chicago either had a visit from the Wild Hunt last night or something doing a really good job at imitation.”
“What?” Ian asked, incredulous. “But that’s impossible.”
“When can you be here?” Sean asked.
“Mary and Bradley arrived back last night,” he said. “Gillian and I can pack up and leave in the morning. I can be there before noon.”
Sean nodded slowly. “Thanks. It’s a gruesome scene. You might not want to bring Gillian,” Sean said.
“I’ll ask her on the drive down,” Ian replied. “She might prove more useful than you think.”
“Okay, I’ll see you then,” he said. “I’m going to get home and get a little sleep.”
“Um, Sean,” Ian inserted before Sean could hang up.
“Yes?”
“Gillian just messaged me that she wants you to do her a favor and place something iron across your doorway after you’re in,” he said.
“Something iron?”
“Aye, she says she’ll explain tomorrow. Just do it.”
“Okay, you’re the professor,” Sean agreed and then hung up the phone. “And you just gave me the creeps.”
He looked down at his notes, remembering the pleading look on Jamal’s face when they finished the interview. “You believe me, don’t you?” the boy had asked.
Sean nodded. “Yeah, I believe you, and I’m going to go call a friend of mine who knows more about this kind of stuff,” he had replied. “But Jamal…”
“Yes, Detective O’Reilly.”
“Maybe for right now, you shouldn’t answer anyone else’s questions,” Sean had advised. “Just pretend the drugs they gave you kicked in and you’re too sleepy. Okay?”
The young man nodded and smiled. ‘Yeah, okay, I can do that.”
“Good, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he had promised and hurried to his car to call Ian.
Closing his notebook, Sean put his car into gear, pulled out of the parking spot and headed across town to his apartment near the lake. The streets were nearly deserted and the few vehicles he passed were either Chicago Sanitation trucks or large, rumbling Chicago Transit Authority buses. He flicked on his turn signal and was waiting at the light for the chance to hop onto the expressway when he remembered another obligation.
“Damn, I nearly forgot,” he muttered, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was behind him and then inching over into the through lane before the light changed. Instead of Interstate 90, Sean drove up Harrison Street and turned left into the tunnel that was known as lower Wacker Drive.
Built in the 1920s, the lower level of Wacker Drive had been created to accommodate the delivery trucks using the below-level street to access buildings that stood alongside the Chicago River. The thick concrete pylons had to be strong enough to withstand the heavy downtown traffic above and the low concrete ceilings were created to give trucks just enough room to maneuver in the shadowy recesses of the expensive retail stores and office buildings.
Sean wondered what Mary would see if she were down here. She often got a glimpse of the history of a place. Would she see mobsters dumping a concrete-booted victim into the depths of the Chicago River? Prohibition-dodging socialites sneaking out of vintage limousines with their boot-legged liquor hidden beneath their coats? Dock workers unloading the ships that traveled down the Chicago River? Or drowning victims from the unfortunate Eastland steamship disaster where 844 people died just off the docks of lower Wacker drive?
He shivered as he wondered about the unseen hundreds he probably shared the tunnel with that night. Of course, he reasoned, the current view wasn’t much better. The skeleton frames of old boat moorings and docks on the river side of the road lay deserted, except for the scampering of large river rats. The other side of the four-lane road had been a labyrinth of service docks for stores, restaurants and office buildings, but now the concrete slabs and sidewalks had become a community for many of the city’s homeless. Large appliance boxes, small lean-tos and even old camping tents created a neighborhood of those who either shunned humanity or had been tossed away by society because they didn’t fit the mold.
He spotted the woman he’d been looking for, alone as usual, huddled in a small corner where a concrete wall protected her from the worst of the cold winds. She stood with her wooden staff in her old, gnarled hands, watching her surround
ings and her precious grocery cart fervently. That’s how he had first met her, fighting off a group of young thugs intent on stealing that cherished cart. Sean pulled his cruiser up to the curb, grabbed a white paper sack from the seat next to him and exited the car. “Top of the morning to you, Hettie,” he called, walking towards her.
She smiled at him, exposing her nearly toothless gums, and nodded. “Tis the middle of the night, foolish mortal,” she called back. “Are you blind?”
“Oh, but Hettie, me darling, when I see you, I only see sunshine and summer days,” he replied.
She snorted rudely, but the smile widened on her wizened face. “For all your charm, you won’t be getting under me skirts,” she taunted as he drew nearer.
Her tiny body was bent and probably broken in a dozen places. But she proudly wore a long, green ball gown that was too large for her thin frame and a thick wool shawl that Sean had given her that matched the color of the gown. Her nose and her ears had outgrown the rest of her facial features, reminding Sean of the picture of a goblin he’d seen as a child. She held her staff in front of her, partially for protection, he thought, and partially for support.
Sean slapped his hand against the middle of his chest. “Hettie, once again you puncture my heart with your harsh words,” he said, handing her the bag and smiling at her soft cackle. “Have I no hope?”
Reaching inside the bag she pulled out the Styrofoam cup filled with tea laced liberally with cream and honey. She eagerly pulled the tab up and drank greedily, her thick tongue darting around her dried lips to gather any stray drops and her small, dark eyes closed in pleasure. “I thank ye, Sean,” she whispered, her now opened eyes moist, “for the lovely things you do for me.”
Smiling at her, Sean pulled a lighter from his pocket. “I know your answer, but I have to ask,” he said. “Will you not come with me so I can find you a safer place to stay?”
She shook her head, pulled a blueberry scone out of the bag and brought it to her nose, taking a deep, appreciative sniff. “I would if I could,” she said. “But I must stay here, at me post, until I am needed.”
