Dead of Night: The Nephalem Files (Book 3)

by Douglas Wayne

  I wanted to ask him if he had watched Police Academy too many times after he called me a dirtbag, but I let it slide. Instead, I decided to do the only thing that might make them happy while not stranding me in a city that wasn't my home. This case wasn't going to last forever. Eventually I was going to figure it out and when I did I'm going to need to cover the expense of my own room. Even staying at a sleazy motel on the outskirts of the city would get expensive after a few weeks.

  "I'm not expecting to be here more than a few weeks. As I'm sure you know, I need to travel to work. If you have a card, or a number I can call, I'll let you know when I'm ready to fly back. You can even chauffeur me if you don't feel comfortable with me flying on my own."

  "I'd prefer to arrest you the moment you step foot in the airport."

  "Then you'd probably also prefer that I wasn't recording this entire conversation." I pointed to the phone sitting in a holder on the dashboard. "I'm sure the jury would love to know that I was trying to work with you on this and instead you wanted to disrupt my business and my life while you took your sweet time." The phone really wasn't recording, but I wished it was after making the threat. It had the same effect however, as Ross reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card with his name on it. As I suspected, they were from the Cincinnati field office. Probably called in the moment my body just upped and disappeared. If they had been building this case for this long, I wondered why they hadn't tried to talk to me yet. Then again, I bet the hospital told them I was being transferred to New York, so they probably spent the last few months combing that madhouse looking for me. It took everything I had to keep from laughing as the thought hit my head.

  "If you even think about skipping town without a call, I will string you up to dry personally. Am I understood?"

  "Am I free to go?" I wasn't dodging the question, I just wasn't going to respond to his threats. Besides. I had to act like the phone was still recording. Popping off at him in response wouldn't have helped me in the least.

  "Get out of here!" Cummings shouted as he stomped back to the car.

  I closed my door and rolled up my window, thankful the pair had had enough. I didn't waste any time pulling back onto River back toward the hotel. I decided against taking my time, however, and stepped on the gas, making sure I didn't go over the speed limit knowing Cummings and Ross would love nothing more than to pull me over again and wait for the locals to show up to give me a ticket.

  After nearly ten minutes of slow driving while constantly watching my rear view mirror for their car, I pulled into the parking lot of the Hilton. I had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in. And now that the Feds were on my case, it was going to be more difficult to get things done. I was more than willing to cross the legal line before, but with two sets of eyes watching me close, I wasn't sure I'd be able to there.

  - 6 -

  Once back in my hotel room, I booted up my laptop and called for a pizza. Now that I didn't have three free meals at the hotel, there was no reason to eat third rate hotel food again. Not that it's any more healthy, but I'll settle for third rate fast food any day.

  After I ordered, I walked back down to the bar and bought two beers to take back to the room. It was no secret that the Feds had me rattled. I may have said enough to get them off my case, but I knew better than to think it would last forever. I wanted to know what prompted this whole mess anyway. I couldn't imagine that an ancient vampire had many friends outside of the paranormal world who would've cared enough to start the legal process. Unless one of the club members came in to talk to him, wondering if it was ever going to open again.

  More realistic was having to face any allies Alfred had in the old world. But after nine months, if they hadn't made a move on me, the odds were against them doing so. Part of me believed that he didn't have many friends on that side of the game either, just knowing how he treated two of his own.

  When my laptop was ready, I hooked my phone up to it with a USB cable and transferred all the pictures over. I wanted to be able to do things to the photo's that would be a pain to handle on the phone. Not to mention, it's a lot less painless to send a group by email than it is by text.

  I started out by zipping all the photos up and sending them to Stacy via email. In the message body I wrote a memo telling her that the family name on the mausoleum was Leclair and that the family might be rich enough to be on the map somewhere. I didn't tell her what to do with the pictures or what to look up, knowing she would handle it much better than I could. I had a way of complicating research beyond belief, trying to dig eight layers farther than I would ever need. Once I sent the email, I followed it up with a text to let her know I had stuff for her to do.

  From there I went through the pictures myself, trying to find anything that may give me an idea about the thing that did this. My first impression was that it wasn't anything demonic, and definitely not a balrogg as there wasn't a trace of scorch marks anywhere. Demonic creatures, being from hell, tend to be really hot and made of fire. Every step they take on something organic will burn it, leaving a charred footprint anywhere they traveled. While there were only a few things I knew that were capable of unearthing a mausoleum with ease, the telltale signs just weren't there.

  My first clue was the intricate brickwork still being in one piece. Most beings with supernatural strength usually lack the control to do delicate work like that. At the very least, I would've seen damaged brick where the being would've grabbed the stone and pulled it from the ground.

  Secondly, most of those beings also tend to be very large. Like three to five stories tall large. That generally means they have enough mass to create rather large footprints of their own. The only footprints that I saw were hundreds of smaller ones in the freshly disturbed soil. That likely meant that we weren't dealing with anything supernatural at all. Just a group of dedicated individuals that came in overnight, dug up the tomb, ransacked it, and got out before daylight. If that was the case, that would mean someone held a grudge against the Leclair family, as you wouldn't have had to unearth the tomb to get to the contents inside, which they clearly wanted.

  I pulled up the picture of the cut chain, in case they had cut it with magical means. But the damaged link held the trademark crimp of a pair of bolt cutters where the center of the link was a point with two tapered edges on each side. If I was a betting man, which I am, I would bet they cut the lock first, grabbed everything they wanted from inside, including whatever remains that were left, and then did the damage to the tomb.

  I closed that file and opened the three that had pictures of the footprints. It was hard to tell from the angles of the pictures, but most of the footprints almost looked far too smooth to make this kind of dirty work practical. There wasn't any rhyme or reason to the pattern of the prints either. It almost looked like the group of people were just hanging out having a casual conversation more than it looked like any sort of work was being done. Closer to the tomb there were a few long skid marks where you could tell someone had put plenty of force against the walls to push it, but the further away from the tomb you got, the more stable the footprints were.

  The trail of prints ended where the dirt had not been disturbed, so it made it very difficult to tell what direction the group had come from and gone. Knowing the main entrance was covered by security cameras that didn't catch anyone entering or leaving, that left the woods as the only option. As much as I didn't really want to, I had to go back to the cemetery tomorrow to check out the surrounding woods.

  I decided to pull up a satellite map of the area, trying to find the most reasonable escape route out. The only clear options I found were a gravel road just to the west of the cemetery. It led as far south as Noel Street and north to a cleared area with a dirt road that followed a line of telephone poles from east to west. I wasn't sold on anyone taking the road, but my gut was telling me they had ended up on that dirt road at some point. There were literally dozens of clear, straight paths on the imagery I was lookin
g at. While it was impossible to know how accurate the display truly was, I was willing to guess most of the cleared areas were still there. Sure, there might be tall grass or even heavy underbrush by now, but the only way trees would be in the corridors was if someone had planted them. Doubtful given that the areas had been cleared in the first place.

  The main thing making me skeptical of someone taking the woods was knowing the kind of creatures that lived down this way. While the evidence of urban sprawl was more than prevalent on the map, there were huge swaths of undeveloped land between them. This area of Louisiana was well known for its marshland and bayous. That puts nasty creatures like alligators, crocodiles, along with large snakes and other reptiles as the primary wildlife in the area. Walking through the marshes would be darn near impossible. Even trying to paddle through them in a small raft or canoe would be treacherous at best, especially at night.

  The wooded areas around the cemetery would be much safer though how much so was another question. The main threat would be snakes, followed closely by coyotes and maybe even foxes. The later two generally wouldn't prey on a human target unless they were nearly starved or desperate. Either of them attacking a group was nearly unheard of, even back home.

  Part of me secretly wanted the perpetrators to be werewolves. In a pack, they would have more than enough strength to do the kind of damage I saw earlier today. The only issue is that tonight is supposed to be a no moon night, meaning there was no way they would've been forced to change that night. There were ways to change between the cycles of the moon, but most of them avoid it unless they don't have another choice.

  Problem two with the werewolf theory were the tracks. In order for them to activate their super strength, they have to be in their hybrid form. The one that looks eerily similar to how Professor Lupin looked in the Harry Potter movies when he fought Serius Black. While the footprint would be relatively humanoid in appearance, minus the presence of the sharp claws at the end of each of the toes, the feet wouldn't fit in shoes at all.

  Whatever caused this mess was clearly creating far more questions than answers at this point, so I shifted gears and started doing my own research on the family. After a quick Google search, I learned that the Leclair family was once a family of archaeologist that originated from France. Apparently one of them, one Oliver Leclair, decided to get away from the family and do business on his own. From what I could see, he severed ties with most of his family and brought all the relics he had found with him to his estate somewhere in the northern part of New Orleans.

  Nothing I saw was clear on whether or not he had any relatives or if something had been buried with him, but my instincts told me he must've had something down there with him when he died. I wrote a reminder on a sheet of scrap paper that I needed to call Nicholas in the morning to ask him a few more questions. Mainly to see if he had a database of items buried with the dead over time. I was doubtful, but it would be worth the time to ask.

  Once my pizza arrived, I tried to call the office hoping Stacy was there to answer. The call went to voice mail after a few rings, so I left a message telling her to call me sometime tomorrow morning. I had a passing thought to call her on her cell, but I let it pass knowing she deserved a break every now and again. Nothing I was doing was so important that I had to bother her on her time off.

  I finished my night by pulling up the address and phone numbers of all the other local cemeteries thinking that more than one might have been hit recently. In the morning I planned on calling at least a dozen, just to see if they have had any weird things happening over the last few weeks. I made it through about half the listings in the phone book before my eyelids started to feel heavy. I closed the laptop and sprawled out on the small couch, hoping to catch a quick nap before getting back to work on my list, so I could hit the ground running first thing in the morning.

  - 7 -

  The sound of my phone going off caused me to leap out of bed, nearly knocking over the porcelain lamp as I frantically reached on the nightstand to grab my phone, not bothering to check who called as I flicked the speaker to life.

  "This is Raymond," I said, trying to hide a yawn as I spoke.

  "You watching the news?" Stacy said, sounding concerned.

  "I was sleeping. What's going on?"

  "You asked me to look into the other local cemeteries to see if any of them have been hit. Looks like there was another overnight. It's on the other side of town though. The news isn't going into too much detail, but they are saying the damage looks similar to your case."

  I flicked on the TV and turned it to one of the local stations, figuring it would give me better information than the national news station Stacy was watching. The broadcast panned to a pudgy dark skinned man wearing a gray suit and a striped red tie. He had a shaved head and a smooth face that accentuated his otherwise chubby cheeks. He was standing in front of a steel fence that had been painted black, just off to the side of the entrance which they had in the shot. Traffic flowed into, and out of the cemetery as the man spoke.

  "For the second time this week, another local cemetery has been hit by a group of vandals. This time it was the Cedar Valley Cemetery on the east side of the city. The owner of the cemetery will not allow us inside to show you the full extent of the damage, but witnesses have told us there are at least three dozen graves disturbed. The destruction isn't limited to the graves, however. At least three people have told us one of the mausoleums has been unearthed and vandalized. We have not been able to confirm the reports."

  "The owner of the cemetery, Colten Hamilton, had this to say."

  The shot cut off, going to tape obviously filmed earlier in the day. Much like the previous shot, this one was done just outside the entrance. Colten was an older man, in his mid to late fifties. He had long black hair, obviously fake or dyed as it didn't come close to matching the hair on his chin, which was lighter brown and with tufts of gray in spots. His face held a somber expression as if he had spent most of the morning preparing himself for the onslaught of phone calls that would happen later this morning as loved ones called in to make sure it wasn't one of their graves destroyed. He was wearing a pair of black dress slacks and a black jacket over a white button-up shirt and a red tie. He had a flower pinned to his left jacket pocket and a handkerchief in his right.

  "The damage inside is minimal, mainly to the grounds themselves. I have called in help from around the area to help repair the cemetery and to make it look good as new. In respect for the families who have loved ones buried here, I ask the public to avoid Cedar Ridge Cemetery while we make the repairs."

  The shot cut back to a live shot with the reporter, standing in the same spot.

  "The police are asking for help in tracking down the people responsible for the damage here overnight. Cedar Ridge Cemetery has offered a reward for anyone who comes forward with information that leads to an arrest.

  "I have been asked to reiterate that unless you have loved ones buried here, you are being asked to stay away from the cemetery while the repairs are made."

  "Guess I need to head down there and check it out. See if there is a connection between the two," I said, bending over to grab my shoes.

  "They have to be connected. All the reports I've seen say the damage pattern is similar to Pine Ridge."

  "Speaking of that, have you found anything interesting yet?"

  "I just got the email this morning. I turned on the news right after I read it. Still haven't downloaded the attachment. Photos I assume?"

  "Few dozen. Just the interesting stuff. If you come up with any ideas, give me a call. Otherwise I'll talk to you later this afternoon."

  "Be careful down there," she said, and I hung up the phone.

  My mind raced as it tried to come up with an explanation. What could be so interesting that someone would destroy not one, but two different cemeteries to find it. Not only that, I was starting to wonder if there was going to be another one in the coming days. How many more would they destroy b
efore they found what they were looking for, whatever it was.

  I hurriedly got dressed and raced down to the lobby, not wanting to waste another minute than was necessary. As I walked through the lobby, the man behind the desk waved me down. He was a younger guy, mid twenties was my guess. I hadn't seen this guy yet, but I assumed the manager filled him in the night before as I had asked to be informed if my package arrived.

  As I got closer, he reached down behind the counter and pulled out a long, rectangular box and placed it on the counter. It was my staff, as I expected. I didn't want him to ask any questions as to why I had to ship a staff through the mail instead of taking with me on the flight, so I thanked the man for flagging me down and took the box out to the car with me before I opened it up.

  I set the staff in the passenger seat and threw the box in the back before throwing the car into drive and making the trip across town. The drive took me up to 10 where I took the highway until it swung back north, just east of the French quarter. Instead, I kept straight, going across the Mississippi on 90 and got off on General De Gaulle Drive.

  Much like Pine Ridge Cemetery, this one was located not far from the river, in the center of a wooded patch of the outskirts. It seemed to be around an industrial or even commercial area, not even close to residential. I wondered just how much traffic this cemetery got, being out of the way like it was, but imagined it was cheaper to buy a plot here than it was in the crowded cemeteries inside the city limits.

  The news vans were still sitting out front, with their telescoping broadcast antennas raised high in the sky. The man I saw on the TV just about an hour ago was standing underneath the shade of a tree, just outside of the gate. Other reporters followed his lead though taking refuge under the other trees that lined the front gate.

  In addition to the news vans, there were nearly a half dozen police cars lining the street. Just inside the gate, two of the officers were looking into any vehicles that entered. Looking for less scrupulous reporters, I told myself. They didn't seem to be slowing down the flow of traffic that much, just enough to cause a slight backup on the road outside.