But this show of animosity—it seemed like an act on behalf of his employer. I saw that almost right away. He actually looked uneasy, talking to me in this fashion. Hampton had even saved my life one time. But—given the straight choice—he would always choose to be on Woody’s side. The man was a loyal employee to a considerable fault.
I thought it best to try and reason with him.
“Look, I understand that your boss has these little mood swings. All of us get that. But if you knew what’d been going on, you’d see that this isn’t the time for stupid games.”
“No game, sport,” came a taut voice from the darkness behind Hampton. “I know why you’re here. I’ve got your number, you might say. And I’m not having it, not in the least bit. No.”
I craned my neck, trying to make Raine out. But he usually dresses in drab colors, which makes that a problem in the dark. So I let my head drop back and shoved my hands into my pockets, trying to appear relaxed.
“Not having what, exactly?” I inquired.
I almost flinched as his fruity tones washed around me a second time.
“Not having rudeness, interference, prying. Learn your limitations, Mr. Private Spy. Ms. Tollburn is a friend of mine.”
I didn’t know he had any of those. But then I remembered something. Back in their wild youths, she’d run with his crowd several times. I’d no idea how thick she had been with him, but it seemed that she was cashing in on old connections.
The fact that she counted as an acquaintance of his made me trust her even less. And I hadn’t trusted her that much in the first place.
“She came here,” Raine went on, “to speak with me in confidence. To impart certain, private, things. And do you really imagine you can just walk up and ask me to divulge them, like some fishwife in a Laundromat? I think not, sport. I really do not.”
It wasn’t simply his house that he kept on changing. He had altered himself physically in several ways down the last few years. Didn’t even look like a normal human being any longer. Most notably, his eyes were twice the size they had originally been. They now had slitted pupils, like a cat’s. And they shone like bright gold beacons.
So…right at this moment his eyes were shut, I guessed. That was why I could not see him. He often did that, even while talking. Another indication of the state his mind was in. I was reduced to staring where I thought he might be, which did not feel very comfortable. Pretty much like talking to a disembodied voice.
“You’re always telling me how much you care about this town,” I pointed out.
“Of course I do. Of that there is no doubt.”
His own bizarre take on reality again. And if I hadn’t been used to it then it would have annoyed me. The fact was, most of the time he remained totally aloof, even when the Landing was under dire threat. But there was no point trying to argue with him. Any action like that was a waste of breath. The only thing I could do was pretend to believe him and press on.
“Its oldest adept is dead, murdered, as of tonight. And something from his place is missing, probably something magical. By the way your friend went after it, important too. A stone killer’s gotten hold of it. How good does that sound?”
A pair of huge eyes suddenly sprang open beyond Hampton’s shoulder. I practically lurched back. It wasn’t just the sheer abruptness with which they’d appeared. When I had last met with Raine, they’d been a golden yellow. Now, they’d turned considerably darker, practically a glowing bronze. And the pupils, although still slitted, had shrunken to a smaller size. As if they were diminishing into the distance. Physically retreating from our world.
A shudder ran through me. There was no use trying to hide it. What had brought about this change? Whatever, I was pretty certain he was getting worse, his madness devouring him and growing more intense.
He didn’t move. The twin orbs hung there in the dimness. Then his voice came oozing out beneath them.
“This is not a matter for the general public’s gaze, Devries. Whatever has happened is the sole concern of those involved. And we can deal with it perfectly well, without any help from your sort.”
My what? He might have always been a self-important little S.O.B., but he’d never spoken to me that way before. Even Hampton looked embarrassed.
But Raine’s attitude was catching my interest far more than offending me. The way that he was behaving made one thing pretty obvious. Whatever might be going on, it was something major. The fine hairs prickled on my wrists when I realized that.
“Go away,” he snarled at me.
But I just stood there, waiting to see how far he’d take this.
“Go away before I make you go.”
Which was the first time that he’d ever really threatened me. He’d always been a stickler for old values like hospitality. But it seemed even that was gone. Those incandescent eyes of his were not even blinking. I had no doubt that he could do something pretty awful to me if he got a mind to. But I’ve always stood up to adepts, and wasn’t about to let him brush me off like this. I wanted the satisfaction, if nothing else, of having the final word.
I tipped my chin.
“Your property, your rules. Okay. But knowing you, Woods, if you’re taking charge of matters, things are going to get out of hand pretty fast from this point on. When that happens, you know where I am and how to contact me. You understand?”
He made a faint hissing noise. And I have to admit, I tensed up slightly when he did that. But it turned out to be his only response. His eyelids slid back down, so that to all intents and purposes he disappeared again. And then, the heavy doors swung shut, apparently under their own steam.
I got one final glimpse of Hampton’s face, still looking decidedly unhappy. And then, I was staring at blank panels of wood, and nothing more than that.
A rattling noise from high on the roof told me one of the gargoyles had woken, and was scuttling about on the tiles up there. I’d never seen any of them climb down, but there was a first time for everything. So I went back to my car, still wondering what the big secret was.
I was sure that I would find out soon enough, though. And a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially in a place like Raine’s Landing.
CHAPTER 8
My mind was buzzing by the time that I got home. But then, it often is. Living where I did, and doing what I do, tends you keep you more mentally active than is sometimes comfortable.
The street was silent around me when I pulled up on my drive. A black diorama of surrounding houses, with no lights on in any of the windows. And once inside, it was even worse. Without my family there, the place had the echo of a crypt.
The silence wormed into me, stopping me from pondering the whole thing for a moment. But then it came rushing back insistently. Exactly what was going on? I’d become so used to that question the past couple of years, though, that it didn’t have the power over me it used to. I managed to ignore it, threw myself out onto my bed, still fully clothed, and tried to grab a few more hours’ sleep.
I sank into oblivion rapidly enough. But the darkness quickly faded to a blurry gray. And then new features started making themselves obvious. A matter of sound and scent, at first. I could hear a murmuring somewhere in the distance. And I thought I could smell woodsmoke.
Everything came sharply into focus. I was on open ground, a huge plain of some kind. A vast outcrop of jagged rocks could be made out near the horizon. The sun was low and red above them. And there were deeper shadows across their surface, which I thought might be the openings to caves.
I jerked slightly. But I wasn’t totally surprised. This wasn’t any dream either…it was a vision. My mind had traveled to this place, briefly, once before. I wasn’t quite sure where it was. But I knew it was connected to the spirit-woman in the gemstone I’d once owned.
She was called Amashta. When her voice—flat in tone and creaky with age—came drifting to me, I was already expecting it. She was some kind of very ancient shaman. And she’d helped me
before, back when I’d been fighting Saruak. Although to what ultimate end, I still had no idea.
What I had real trouble grasping was the title she’d bestowed on me. She used the word in her very first breath.
“So, Defender? You find yourself at the start of yet another battle.”
I had no idea why she called me that. It felt like something that I didn’t even want, a heavy burden pressing down on me like a ten-ton weight.
I cleared my throat, which felt very dry.
“Are you here to help again?”
Her power had flowed through me the first time I’d encountered her. It hadn’t been enjoyable, and I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of it happening again. But here we were once more, so it seemed reasonable to ask.
“It is better not to, on the whole. You are the Defender, and your purity must be intact.”
My what?
“As I told you earlier, it’s a matter of free will. Massive strength derives from that. One of your modern mystics said it well. ‘That which does not kill you makes you stronger.’”
I was familiar with the quote. But personally, it had never been my experience. That which didn’t kill me generally left me bruised, exhausted, and wishing I lived somewhere else. Besides which, she was avoiding the main point.
When we’d first run across each other, she had implied certain things, and pretty startling ones at that. A whole bigger picture to our lives here in Raine’s Landing. A struggle underway here that went well beyond the everyday perils that we faced. I seemed to play some kind of vital role in it. I had some kind of destiny. And I still wasn’t overly delighted about the prospect of that.
If I could only get a clearer picture. What was this whole thing about?
Amashta seemed to sense what I was thinking. And her voice became far milder, filling up with empathy.
“Yes, I see your point, Defender. Blind faith does nothing to enhance free will. And so of course you need to know a little.”
She paused, then told me, “Go to the shaman you call Willets.”
How much did she know about this town of ours? Everything?
“Say one word to him, and he’ll explain.”
“That word being?” I heard myself ask.
“T’choulon.”
There was suddenly a shrieking noise, like a massive blast of cold wind rushing through my head. It swept away everything. Her voice. The smell of smoke. The scene around me.
And it woke me up, very sharply.
Dawn was brightening my drapes. A car went by outside, and then a baby started wailing in a nearby house. I took in my surroundings, and then clutched my forehead, groaned.
I felt even more tired than when I’d fallen onto the bed. And little wonder. First it had been the Little Girl. And then the spirit-woman. And since when had denizens of the supernatural world begun using my head like a bus station waiting room, ducking in and out of it whenever the fancy took them?
I tried to stay down for a short while longer, clutching at my pillow. But the intensity of the late-summer daylight forced me to let go of that. There were plenty of sounds outside my house. Mine is a modest but respectable neighborhood, one that has no truck in the slightest with late risers.
The house seemed fairly cool around me. And the chill clung to me like a clammy second skin, in spite of the fact I was still dressed. I wasn’t in the mood for a proper breakfast. There was a leftover slice of pizza in the fridge, and I decided to settle for that. I went through into the kitchen, fished out a small saucepan, and then heated up some coffee that I’d brewed the day before.
The living room had become a little more untidy since I’d last looked at it properly. I hadn’t thrown out any copies of our newspaper, the Landing Ledger, in the last two weeks. And there were certain things I never touched. The checkerboard off in the corner of the room, for instance. There was still a game on it, half played. There were half a dozen shelves of books—Alicia and I had always been big readers. A large stack of records, which included classical and jazz. The paintings on the walls were all by local artists and, obviously, were of places inside town, or else the edges of the forest.
Mounted over the mantelpiece was the first fish Pete had ever caught, a little bass.
He had been five years old when he had disappeared. I felt angry and lost as usual, thinking about that. I cleared myself a space on the couch, and switched on the TV to our local station. Marlon Fisk was on a sidewalk in front of somebody’s front yard. A microphone was clutched in his grasp, and he was halfway through his report.
“…still reeling with shock at the murder of the town’s oldest and most respected adept.”
But it wasn’t the Tollburn house that he was standing in front of. And that took me by surprise. Behind him was an ordinary residence with white walls and a green-tiled roof. So apparently, something else had happened.
A small crowd of people had gathered around the man. Each of them looked anxious and disturbed. His face dropped for a second, then he peered at the camera again.
“A night of tragedy grew even worse when, here on Hutton Avenue in the East Crealley district, insurance adjuster Stephen Anderson butchered his wife and both of his children before taking his own life.”
Some coffee slopped from my mug and scalded my fingers, but I kept on watching, listening.
“People who knew the family are describing them this morning as ‘happy and normal.’ So whatever caused Mr. Anderson to behave the way he did remains a total mystery.”
I recalled my feelings last night, when Saul had suggested a serial killer. The plain fact is, the Landing is no stranger to tragedy. It happens all the time, in various ways. But most of it is down to witchcraft, either gone wrong or plain misused. No one around here committed murders out of spite, or for the hell of it.
It was like the whole dynamic of the place had altered overnight. And that made me as edgy as the people on my TV screen were looking.
I got Saul on his cell phone. As you’d expect, he sounded quite harassed.
“There’s stuff even the press doesn’t know,” he told me. “The whole thing’s worse than it already sounds.”
I sat up a little straighter. “How so?”
“This is strictly between us, Ross. The Andersons? They had that same symbol carved into them.”
“The theta?”
“Yup. I don’t understand how, but this one and the Tollburn case are linked.”
The Little Girl had told me something new was here in town. But I didn’t mention it to Saul right away, since the danger was too indefinite as yet.
“We should talk this over in more detail,” I suggested.
“Absolutely. There’s this place—it opens early. Harriet’s Pantry, on Maynard. Know it?”
Yes, I did. It was barely three minutes’ walk from the office I have on Union Square.
“Meet you there in half an hour’s time?” he suggested.
And I could see nothing wrong with that.
CHAPTER 9
I called Cass and told her where we’d be, because I wanted her along. She needed to be in on this. And it turned out that she’d already heard about the Andersons. The fact that there were children involved had shaken her up. We both have that particular Achilles heel. But I tried to remain as calm about it as I could. I showered and shaved, dragged some clothes on, then went out again.
The town sped by as I headed for its center. Its sidewalks were only very lightly populated by this hour. Most people would be indoors having breakfast, getting ready for work or school. And catching up with the morning’s news, which wasn’t going to be an awful lot of fun. Except it would look, to them, like nothing more than an unpleasant coincidence. Nobody would have a clue, as yet, that something really bad might be descending on us once again.
The place looked as fresh as a daisy in the early morning light. At first glance, you’d think that nothing ever happened here. I went past an empty schoolyard, then a small pond with some ducks.
The shoe store on Kent still had its sale in progress. And just beyond the stoplights there, a fellow in coveralls was hauling a wheeled tin-can kind of device along the pavement, refreshing the white line down the middle of the road.
I parked in the alley behind my office building, and went the rest of the way on foot.
Rounding the corner of Maynard, I practically bumped into Hoyt Dinsmore. He owned a store nearby, and was on his way to open it. We nodded, acknowledging each other, but he looked surprised to see me. And a little nervous too, his eyes widening behind their glasses. Like a lot of folk in town, he knew the kind of stuff I got involved in. And it makes them jumpy when I look like I’ve got something up. He seemed faintly relieved, to be quite honest, when we went our separate ways.
The drizzle of last night was gone. Most of the puddles had dried up. It was growing brighter, sunlight flashing on the windows around me. The air was a touch crisper, but by no means properly cool. Summer was still hanging on by the ragged edges of its fingernails.
I reached the eatery and sat down at an outside table. I didn’t come here much, favoring a different diner. Either Harriet’s Pantry had never changed its décor since it had been opened, or was going for a retro look. The awning above me was a candy-colored, stripy one. The tablecloth in front of me was checkered, red and white. There was a candle in a holder made out of a pinecone, unlit at this time of day. And posters for old musicals on the walls inside.
A waitress—too young to be Harriet herself—took my order, bringing me another mug of coffee. Then I leant back and watched the world go by for several minutes.
There were a few more cars than there had been before, and more pedestrians in evidence. Folk were starting to head into work. Everything looked the way it should. A fire truck went by, although slowly and without its siren on. And then a small blue-green car drew up to the far curb. Something about it captured my attention.
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