XGeneration (Book 5): Cry Little Sister

by Brad Magnarella

  When the detective’s walkie-talkie squawked, Scott jumped.

  Not taking his eyes from Scott’s pocket, Detective Buckner raised the talkie to his lips. “Go ahead.”

  Scott fought the urge to push the wallet out of sight. He looked to Janis for help, but she appeared more interested in the detective’s exchange with his dispatcher.

  Detective Buckner slid the talkie back into its holder. “I have a call to respond to,” he said, backing away. To Scott’s relief, he was no longer looking at his wallet. “You two get right home, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Scott said, already angling his body away.

  He watched over his shoulder as the police cruiser performed a three-point turn. The red and blue lights whirred to life as the car sped away. When Scott thought it safe, he stuffed his wallet down.

  “Man, that was too close.”

  He joined Janis, who was throwing her leg over her beach cruiser. Scott lifted his own bike and hopped onto the seat. But within two pumps of his pedals, he realized they were going in opposite directions. Janis had turned toward the receding police car.

  “House is this way,” Scott said.

  “Didn’t you hear them?”

  “Hear what?”

  “There’s been another dog slaying.”

  The same cold bolt Scott had felt upon seeing David’s fangs for the first time shot down his spine again. He heard David make that slurping sound, tongue flickering between his pointed teeth.

  Scott turned abruptly and stood into his pedals to catch up with Janis.

  “Here it is,” Scott said.

  A wood-frame house stood from the roadside on stilts. In the glow of its outdoor lights, Janis could make out the police cruiser parked beside a station wagon. Scott had recognized the street address, which was good, because Detective Buckner had left them in the dust.

  They stashed their bikes off road and crept down the driveway.

  When Janis heard voices, she blurred the space around her and Scott. It wasn’t invisibility—she didn’t possess that skill—but it was the next best thing. Whoever happened to glance their way would be more likely to pass them over than pause for a second look.

  Scott must have felt the slight warp of space because he gave her a thumbs up.

  The voices became clearer as they descended. A woman’s voice spoke in muffled cries.

  “We … we just came home and … and…”

  Janis and Scott crept to the driver’s side of the police car and peeked over the hood. Beneath the stilts of the house, a woman was pressing a hand to her eyes. A man who Janis assumed to be her husband stood behind her, massaging her hitching shoulders. Detective Bucker was facing them, pen poised over a notepad. He spoke in an official but calming voice.

  “And he was in good health when you left?”

  “He was fine,” the woman bawled. “We jus … jus … just bought him.”

  There he is. Scott pointed.

  Janis shifted her eyes to the right. The dog’s leash had been fastened to the rail of a wooden staircase that climbed to the house. Partially concealed by the steps was the dog himself. He was on his side with only his hindquarters exposed. A jacket had been set over him. Judging by his color and shag, Janis guessed the dog to have been a Siberian husky.

  They’re such a gentle breed, she thought toward Scott.

  Scott’s hand wrapped her shoulder. She reached across her chest and grasped his fingers. Anger and despair stirred in the pit of her stomach. Who would do that? she asked herself.

  And why? That was the more important question.

  She still couldn’t bring herself to accept Scott’s vampire theory, at least not until all other explanations had been exhausted. So, if someone hadn’t killed the dog for nourishment, what did that leave? A break-in?

  “When you went inside to call us, did you happen to notice anything missing?” Detective Buckner asked at that moment.

  “No,” the husband answered. “Everything appeared to be where we left it.”

  The wife was sobbing against his chest now.

  All right, strike break-in, Janis thought. Sheer cruelty, then?

  Any impressions? Scott asked her.

  One moment…

  Janis reached toward the dog first. The threads connecting them were pulse-less, without life. Janis inhaled against the threat of tears and shifted her focus to the wife. The woman’s grief felt like an open wound. Her husband’s energy was rigid, stilted, but he was in no less shock.

  Janis spread her consciousness beneath the house until a sensation like cold voltage rippled through her. A gasp must have escape her lips because Scott stirred beside her. What is it?

  The same energy I felt in your house, over the sliding glass door … She focused toward the distortion of space, the exhausted ochre color. It’s fainter, but it’s there.

  Where the dog is? he asked.

  Janis checked again and nodded her head.

  9

  Scott awoke late the following morning and found Janis emerging from the upstairs bathroom, freshly showered and dressed. She was toweling her hair, which hung in a dark sheet over one shoulder. She didn’t see him at first, and Scott savored the image: the unconscious tilt of her head, her quiet, preoccupied expression, which Scott had always found so beguiling.

  How he had ever ended up with someone so drop-dead amazing remained beyond him.

  Janis gave a small start upon noticing him before her face filled with recognition. She coiled the towel and popped it at his hip. “Hop to it, sailor. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

  Scott skipped back. “Huh?”

  They had returned home after midnight, after they overheard Detective Buckner confirming what they had already suspected: the dog had been bled dry. Janis pedaled silently on their return. The sight of the dead husky had rattled her. Even now Scott could tell her teasing eyes were guarding a deeper anxiety. So why was she so eager now? Especially when she had been so reluctant to board the investigation train only the evening before?

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  “We have a fingerprint.”

  “We do?”

  “Well, the energy I felt around the dog is as good as one. It matched the energy over your sliding glass door. Whoever left those fingerprints has to have left them in other places, right?”

  “Right … but who can say where?”

  “Where would the greatest concentration of anyone’s fingerprints be?”

  Scott ran both hands through his bed head. “Where they live?”

  “Right-O.”

  She draped her towel over his head and began pushing him in the direction of the bathroom.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “So we’re going to go door to door and say, ‘Do you mind if we snoop around your house so we can check your energetic fingerprints and hopefully match them to a dog killer’s?’”

  When the towel jerked from his head, Scott found Janis staring at him, a hand on her cocked hip.

  “Well…?” he said.

  “Where do you start any investigation?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He felt stupid. “With the chief suspects.”

  “And I think we both know who yours are.”

  When Scott realized what she was proposing, he threw his palms out. “No, no, no. No. No.” He backed away. “Bad idea. Very bad idea.”

  She took his hands and pressed them to her sternum. “It’s not as risky as you’re thinking. Look, while you were sleeping in, I took a little excursion.” Scott knew by “excursion” she meant an out-of-body journey. “David and his pack are in Murder World. Their bikes are parked outside that vampire ride, the Bloodsucker. No one’s home, Scott.”

  He remembered the address he had read off to her the night before. It was on the other side of town, in what locals called the “Old Section.” Which, judging by the collapsing houses and grown-over streets, seemed a polite way of saying the “Section That’s Gone to Shit.”

 
Scott read something in her expression. “You still don’t believe it’s them, do you?”

  She shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

  “Fine, just let me hop in the shower.”

  As warm water sprayed over him, Scott wondered what had made Janis flip. Had his appeal to her the evening before done the trick, or was she intuiting something new? Something she wasn’t ready to share?

  Scott also wondered whether news of Murder Creek’s second dog slaying in as many weeks had made its way around the semi-comatose community yet. By the time he had dried off, he had his answer to the last question—in the form of his mother’s shrill voice emanating from downstairs.

  When Scott and Janis arrived in the kitchen, his mother was just hanging up the wall phone. Scott acted duly surprised when she shared what he and Janis already knew. The dog’s owners had gone out for the evening, securing their new husky to the stairs beneath their house. When they returned, his jugulars had been cut open. No other signs of foul play.

  “It’s harrible,” his mother said, her distress reviving her New Jersey accent. “Just harrible!’

  Between his mother’s ensuing rant over the further depreciating effect the slayings would have on their home, and her tears for J.R.’s safety, Scott gleaned that Mayor Walpole and Chief McDermott would be holding a town meeting on the steps of the city hall building at noon.

  Wanna drop by that meeting before heading to David’s? he asked, sidling toward Janis.

  Sounds like a plan, she said.

  By the time Scott and Janis arrived downtown, the metal folding chairs arranged on the lawn of the municipal building were half full. They set their beach cruisers down and took a pair of seats in the back row. Scott’s mother had gone off in search of his father, and now Scott noticed their car pulling up curbside.

  “Oh God,” he moaned.

  “What’s the big deal?” Janis asked. “Oh.” She bit back a grin.

  Scott hunkered further as his father rounded the front of the car in another of his loud Hawaiian shirts, a pair of Bermuda shorts, and flip-flops—his beach-combing attire. The mesh fanny pack he dropped his found items inside bulged above his hip. Upon spotting Scott, his squinting face broke open and he gave a hearty wave.

  To Scott’s relief, his mother led him to the front row of chairs, J.R.’s crate swinging from her other hand.

  As Scott straightened again, he saw that most of the attendees had brought their pets. Dogs strained against leashes. From laps, cats flattened their ears and looked generally annoyed. One woman had brought her parrot, a large green Macaw that strutted back and forth across the span of her shoulders dribbling yellow poo. No creature was safe at home.

  Anxious laughter fluttered through a sound system, and Scott looked up to see that Mayor Walpole had taken the podium at the top of the steps. Chief McDermott stood behind him and to one side.

  “Thanks for coming,” Mayor Walpole began. He was wearing a wooly brown vest over a white oxford. “As many of you have no doubt heard, Murder Creek experienced another tragedy last night when a second canine was killed.” He held up his hands for calm. “I’ll turn the podium over to Chief McDermott shortly to answer your questions, but first I want to assure you that Murder Creek remains a safe community. Our crime statistics bear that out. For the last ten years, violent crimes in Murder Creek have remained in the bottom quintile compared to…”

  He’s really nervous about something, Janis whispered in Scott’s head.

  Any idea what?

  Scott watched the skin fold between her eyebrows.

  It’s hard to say, she replied after a moment. It’s like he feels his grip on something is starting to slip.

  Scott snorted. My mom seems to think his grip has been slipping ever since we bought the beach house.

  The mayor read off several more happy statistics. He finished by repeating his claim that Murder Creek remained a solid place to live and raise a family. “I assure you that my family and I aren’t going anywhere.” He beamed down at his wife and four boys, who sat in the front row from tallest to shortest, like a vertical xylophone. “Indeed, the future of Murder Creek is bright.”

  “Based on what?” Scott’s mother demanded.

  The mayor straightened his glasses to block his view of her. “Oh, and don’t forget to support the Sisters of Mercy canned food and clothing drive.” He beamed another crooked smile, which turned into another anxious laugh, before yielding the podium to Chief McDermott.

  “Afternoon,” the chief said through his thick mustache. In his three-piece tweed suit, he looked like a rounder version of the Monopoly man without the top hat. “I’m here to answer your questions.”

  A hand shot up. Chief McDermott nodded toward it.

  “Have you made any arrests?” a woman asked.

  “Not yet.” He picked out someone else’s hand.

  “Do you have any suspects?”

  “We have a few people of interest we’re interviewing.”

  “Is there any connection between the recent break-ins and the dog murders?”

  “We haven’t ruled it out.”

  Because they have no evidence one way or the other, Janis spoke in Scott’s head.

  “What’s the motive?” a middle-aged man asked.

  “Well, we have a couple of lines of thought.” The police chief cleared his throat a few times. “The first is that the perpetrator was trying to break into the residences, and he killed the dogs to silence them. In both cases, neighbors reported hearing the dogs barking before going quiet. But that doesn’t explain the blood loss. The dogs in question had their throats cut, and in a similar manner. The dogs’ blood was then drained into some kind of receptacle because no blood was discovered at either scene.”

  Yeah, Scott thought. That receptacle being David’s stomach.

  “What would someone want with their blood?” an elderly woman asked.

  “That’s our second line of thought, that the killings are part of a cult ritual.”

  That drew uncomfortable murmurs from the audience. Scott felt the muscles in his jaw tense. He had to fight the impulse to jump up and cry, “It’s not cultists, you dummies. It’s vampires! Vampires!” But he knew that would only draw the murmurs toward him—and not in a good way.

  Scott peeked over at Janis to glean what she was thinking, but her face betrayed nothing.

  “Yes?” Chief McDermott said, selecting another raised hand.

  A fist of dread thudded into Scott’s stomach as he realized the chief was pointing at his mother. She stood in her lime-green skirt suit, pushing up the jacket sleeves as though preparing to brawl.

  “Have you considered that this might be an attack against the town?”

  Scott’s face fell into his hands. What in the hell is she talking about?

  Janis’s hand clutched his forearm. No, wait … That struck a nerve.

  Scott raised his face to find Chief McDermott working his mustache around, as though chewing on his mother’s question. The eyes beyond his thick lenses remained at half mast, though. Almost sleepy.

  He looks the same to me, Scott said.

  Not the police chief. Janis nudged his chin over. The mayor.

  Mayor Walpole, who was standing ramrod straight to the right of the chief, had never stopped smiling, but whatever Janis was picking up was manifesting as a flutter in the corner of his right eyelid.

  “If you’re asking if any of our offices have received threats,” Chief McDermott answered at last, “no, no, we’ve seen nothing like that. If you’re asking if the town is being terrorized … Well, you could certainly make the case. But at this point in time that terror appears to be a product of the dog slayings and not necessarily the perpetrator’s intention.”

  Scott looked from Chief McDermott to the mayor’s rigid smile to his mother huffing back down in her seat.

  Had she touched on something?

  10

  When the questions to Chief McDermott began to repeat, Jani
s closed her eyes and stretched from her body. Her ability to astral project had once been something she could only do at night—and involuntarily. Now, even in her less-than-optimal state, she emerged like a shot.

  As with everything Janis perceived in her astral state, the looming amusement park was a glowing web-work of intersecting lines. At the dome that housed the Bloodsucker ride, she made out four motorcycles lined up in the same place she had perceived them that morning. No other sign of David and his gang. She could probably find them if she pushed, but she didn’t want to test her limits.

  Janis returned to her body and blinked her eyes open.

  “We need to make our move,” she whispered.

  “Now?” Uncertainty altered Scott’s voice.

  “Now,” she said.

  Scott nodded and moved his head for her to follow him. They picked their beach cruisers up off the grass and slipped from the town center. As Scott pedaled ahead, his blue backpack bouncing against him, Janis sensed his confusion over her sudden ardor for the investigation.

  The short answer was the dog.

  Seeing the husky on his side: young; helpless; innocent—that had done it. Whoever had murdered him (because that’s what it was in Janis’s mind, a murder) needed to be stopped. It was also true that the sight of the slain husky had gibed strongly with what she had felt upon arriving in Murder Creek. The dog slaying wasn’t the bad thing, but it felt like a boulder rolling in that direction.

  In that sense, Scott had been right. If they didn’t do something, the badness would escalate.

  Janis pulled up beside Scott as the road turned and began to drop downhill.

  “They’re still in Murder World,” she assured him.

  “Good, because that’s their street coming up.”

  Janis brushed hair from her face and peered toward a turnoff below, where the trees seemed to grow thicker and darker. A sensation like icy fingers brushed the back of her neck.