by Peter Nealen
That echoed my earlier fears. “Maybe you were right about misdirection. But maybe it was in the other direction. Were we supposed to stay here and investigate this,” I wondered suddenly, “instead of going to Bowesmont?”
“I don't know, hon,” Eryn said tiredly. Something in her voice made me look down at her. There were tears glimmering in her eyes. I reached over and drew her close.
“What is it?” I asked quietly.
“It's just...” she sniffed. “All those people. It's just been weighing on me. I know we didn't have a choice, but...so many people are dead, and they didn't even know what they were doing. It's...it's just awful. And the thought that we might have killed them just to fulfill something's evil, convoluted plans? That's even worse.” She shuddered within my arm, half a sob, half a shiver of horror.
“I know,” I replied, giving her what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “Believe me, it's bugging me, too. But you're right, we didn't have a choice. It was them or us.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that's enough,” she said, almost so quietly that I couldn't hear her. Then she reached up and wiped the tears away. “Anyway, back to business. Staying or going...it's a risk, either way. But unless you've got a friend in low places who knows what's going on, I think you're right, and we should go find Blake.”
“There are a few,” I said, thinking mainly of Mickey, the amoral leprechaun who delighted in starting bar fights for his own amusement. He was hard to keep a leash on; his natural tendency toward chaos not only made it difficult to keep him out of trouble, it was hard to keep him on task. He was one of the few informants I had in the Otherworld, and one of the even shorter list of those who weren't constrained to particular territories. “But Mickey's getting less and less forthcoming, and none of the territorial entities on my informants list are near here. I think Bowesmont it is.
“But first, I think I need to make a phone call.”
The phone at St. Michael's Church in the tiny town of Mortensonville, Nebraska, rang for almost ten rings before someone picked up. When I heard, “St. Michael's, this is Thomas Thornton,” I almost groaned.
“This is Jed Horn,” I said. “I need to talk to Father Ignacio.”
If I'd hoped to just get handed off instead of having to talk to the Inquisitor whom I not-so-affectionately knew as “Billy Bob,” my hopes were quickly dashed. “Horn,” he said, “You've been avoiding my messages. I've had three assignments for you in the last six months that you've completely blown off. Need I remind you that there are ranks in the Order for a reason?”
I gritted my teeth. “That's not the way it works, Billy Bob, and you know it,” I replied. “I'm not your errand boy. We've been plenty busy without your honey-do list. You're a coordinator and administrator, not a commander. Now put Father Ignacio on the line.”
“I am an Inquisitor, Horn,” Thornton said imperiously. “I don't take orders from you, I pass the word down for you to act upon.”
“If I could reach through this phone line and wring your neck, Billy Bob,” I snarled, “I would. Forget about your ego, get down off your high horse, and get me Father Ignacio.”
“Calm down, Horn,” he replied. Yelling at him apparently wasn't going to work. “You need to tell me what you're on about, so I can determine if it's worth passing on.”
If I could have punched him right then and there, I would have. Thornton wasn't bad at his job; he was one of the better-informed, more knowledgeable members of the Order. He was a walking encyclopedia. But he was one of the most insufferable, arrogant jackasses I've ever had to deal with. Neither of us had liked the other from the get-go, and now that personality clash was actively interfering in the work. “The town of Coldwell just went psycho and tried to kill us,” I bit out. “The whole town. Whatever caused it has bugged out, leaving no particular trail. The only lead we've got is that Blake Turner was supposed to have gone on to Bowesmont from here, and we're about to follow up. We don't know what's going on, but it is big, bad medicine, and we need some backup. Now put Father Ignacio on the phone!” Eryn and Tall Bear were watching me rather anxiously. I was getting a little heated.
Thornton didn't respond right away. My first thought was that he was trying to think of how he could downplay what had just happened to play up his superior knowledge and wisdom in the legend that was his own mind, while making me out as a panicking crank. But when he finally spoke, he sounded way more subdued than I'd ever heard him.
“Father Ignacio's not here,” he said. “Father Darren is, though.”
I groaned. Father Darren was a great man, and a priest of deep faith and resounding wisdom. Don't get me wrong. But he was pushing ninety, and hadn't really stepped more than a mile from St. Michael's in over a decade. He'd already broken a hip once, and usually got around with a walker, when he was strong enough. The rest of the time, he was usually in a wheelchair. He was in no shape for field work; in fact, he'd been retired from active Witch Hunter activity for almost fifteen years. “Are any others there?”
“No, I'm afraid not,” he replied. “As you know, we only have a handful of priests, and the Order's demands are wide-reaching.” He'd recovered enough to get pedantic again. “I can't say when anyone else will be back. I'm sure Father Darren's advice will be useful.”
“I don't need advice, I need an exorcist and a priest,” I snapped. “Contact Father Ignacio, by any means necessary, and tell him to get to Bowesmont posthaste. We'll meet him there.” Unwilling to bandy anymore words with the stuffed shirt of an “Inquisitor,” I slammed the phone back down on the hook. I knew I shouldn't let him get under my skin, but Billy Bob had a talent for infuriating me. I also knew that I'd probably have to find some other way of getting in touch with Father Ignacio. I doubted I could trust Thornton not to simply dismiss the message just because it came from me.
I stalked back to the truck and got behind the wheel, fuming. Eryn looked at me with concern, while Tall Bear, who was in the back seat with Chrystal, just looked vaguely curious, like he was wondering what had just happened. Chrystal was staring at the floor.
“I'll tell you on the way,” I grunted, as I started the truck and put it in gear. “Let's get moving.”
Chapter 7
At first glance, I almost took Bowesmont for a ghost town. There wasn't a soul on the street as we rolled into town, even though it was getting on toward late morning. We'd stayed in a campsite several miles outside of town; neither Eryn nor I had any interest in repeating our experience in Coldwell after dark.
There was a single traffic light in the middle of town, and we could see it from the far end of the main drag. It was still cycling, so the power was on, but there was no one trying to go through it from any direction. There was a single old Ford pickup sitting at the light, but the doors were open, and there didn't seem to be anyone in or near it. If the silence and stillness of the town hadn't already been ominous enough, that would have done the trick.
Bowesmont wasn't much bigger than Coldwell, though it was a little more spread out; it was built on open, flat ground instead of being crammed up between the bluffs and the river like Coldwell had been. Downtown consisted of four blocks of old-style two- and three-story brick buildings, not too far removed from the railroad siding that had been the town's primary reason for existence in the first place. A handful of cars and trucks were parked on the sides of the main street, though as I looked I noticed several more that had apparently been abandoned in the road. Everything was deathly still.
“I think this is the part where one of us says, 'I've got a bad feeling about this,'” Tall Bear said wryly.
“I think that goes without saying,” Eryn replied. We hadn't even gotten out of the truck yet, but she already had her 870 in her hands. “Are we too late?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said, tapping one hand on the steering wheel, the other sort of instinctively resting on the butt of my 1911 at my side. “It certainly looks like something happened here. The town's not burned down or sucked into
a level of hell, so there's that. No bodies that I can see.”
“Somehow, I don't find that all that encouraging, given what we've seen already,” Eryn said. “Where is everybody?”
Nobody answered at first. I think we were all just kind of taking in the scene. The town seriously looked completely abandoned. Nothing moved except for that cycling traffic light. There weren't even any dogs or cats running around that I could see.
“Well, I hate to say it,” I eventually said, “but we're not going to find Blake or find out what's going on just sitting here. We're going to have to go in and look around.” Strangely enough, no one, including me, seemed to be in a great hurry to get out and go poking around.
But we had two choices—go in there and investigate, or run away, go home, and try to pretend that none of this had happened. Even before I'd joined the Order, the latter option wouldn't have been on the table. I'd gotten into a lot of trouble trying to find out exactly what had happened that night out in the Iraqi desert, when Blake and I had had our first brush with the supernatural, and all because I couldn't just walk away when bad stuff happened. Eryn was much the same way; she'd never have married me after the rather hellish way we met in Silverton otherwise. I got the distinct impression, based on his actions so far, that Tall Bear was right there with us. That just left Chrystal, who had been pretty withdrawn since she'd told her story back in Coldwell. She didn't want to be in this truck with a bunch of crazy people who actually looked for spooks and monsters, and she sure as shooting didn't want to be in Bowesmont. But she had apparently formed enough of a bond with Blake that she wasn't running just yet. Either that, or she was so paralyzed with fear that she was beyond doing much of anything but following where she was led. The latter possibility bothered me, because that would mean we were dragging her into a pretty hellish situation that she was too frightened to say she couldn't handle.
“How do you want to play this?” Tall Bear asked.
I studied the street. “I think we get out and walk. This ain't no up-armor, and if there's something really nasty in there, it'll just turn into a giant tin can for it to peel open to get at the juicy stuff inside. If we're on foot, we've actually got more options.” Aside from running away, of course, but I suspected that once we were in town, running away wouldn't be an option anymore, anyway. Furthermore, I really doubted that we were going to find Blake just by driving through the middle of town.
Tall Bear didn't argue; I didn't know his background, but my guess was that he'd been in enough scrapes as a deputy that he looked at going through a possibly hostile neighborhood much the same way I did after my time in Iraq. Granted, when you're dealing with the demonic or Otherworldly, it gets a little bit different, but we'd still be more agile on foot. Vehicles in urban settings aren't the greatest things to fight from. There's a reason why tanks need infantry support when going into a city.
Since nobody else was exactly champing at the bit to get out there into that eerily still town, I finally cracked my door and stepped out, drawing my Winchester with me and slinging my bandolier over my shoulder. Both Eryn and Tall Bear soon followed suit, but Chrystal still hadn't moved.
We were parked on the edge of town, in what looked like a park or some kind of rest area, though it was just as still and abandoned as the rest of Bowesmont from what we could see. But, especially when the creepy-crawlies are involved, it's never a good idea to equate stillness with safety. “Chrystal,” I said gently, “you're going to be a lot safer coming with us. There's no way I can make sure you're protected if you stay here.”
She didn't say anything at first. She just stared at Bowesmont, wide-eyed and trembling a little. “There's something bad in there,” she finally said, just above a whisper. “I just know it.”
I looked at the town, standing beside her instead of facing her. Maybe it would help, let her know that we were there with her, instead of trying to force her to do anything. “I know,” I said. “I don't really want to go in there, either; it gives me the screaming willies just looking at it. But I've got to go, if Blake's in there. He's my friend. More than that, this is my job. But I've got to keep you safe, too, and I can't do that if you stay here in the truck, alone.”
“I want to go home,” she said, even more quietly.
Eryn had come over while I'd been talking. “I know, Chrystal,” she said, “but do you remember what just happened there? Home isn't the healthiest place to be right now. Believe me, I'd know. I had something just as terrible happen in my hometown, too.” Half of the population of Silverton had perpetrated some truly horrific atrocities on each other that night, under the influence of a true Fallen Angel, Abbadon the Destroyer, who had been clawing his way out of the Abyss, at least until the Captain of The Host, Michael the Archangel, ground-and-pounded him into a mountain and back where he belonged. It had been a rough night, and that's not even bringing up the rain of blood and frogs.
Chrystal was crying now. “I don't want to be a part of any of this!” she sobbed. “I'm scared all the time, and I don't want to go in there! I just want everything to go back to normal!”
“Everyone who's encountered these sorts of things wishes that, honey,” Eryn said. I had stepped back, watching our surroundings, my rifle held ready in my hands. Tall Bear was doing likewise. Eryn was better at the talking part than I was. Given time, I could probably get through to her, but Eryn had a touch that I lacked. “But just wishing doesn't make it happen. You've got to fight it. You're tough; Deputy Craig told me about a few of the things you've been through, and you survived all of those.”
“That was different,” Chrystal sniffled.
“No, Chrystal, it wasn't any different,” Eryn said firmly. “Trauma is trauma, whether the source is human or supernatural. Sure, this stuff is dangerous. It's really dangerous. But you'll be with us. We're used to this sort of thing.” That might be stretching it a little bit. I'd been a Witch Hunter for a good five years, and I still didn't pretend that I was all that jaded at the the idea of the Otherworld and the demonic. It still scares me stiff. These things are a lot more powerful than humans—there's a reason they're scary. The day this job doesn't scare me anymore is the day I'm retiring to a nice house in the backyard of a church. More likely, I'll already be dead. “Either way, Jed is right; if you stay here with the truck, we can't protect you. If you come with us, you might be able to help us find Blake. You do want to find Blake again, don't you?”
Chrystal nodded, frightened tears still running down her cheeks. “I'm worried about him,” she admitted.
I was still scanning the deathly silent town. Nothing had stirred, except for a scrap of paper that was skittering down the street, blown by the wind. I edged a little closer to Tall Bear, who was standing by the hood, and murmured, “If she won't come, would you be willing to stay here with her?”
“Is that really wise, splitting up like that?” he asked.
“Not even remotely,” I replied. “But we can't just leave her here.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the two women, who were now speaking low enough that we couldn't hear them clearly. “I'll admit, I sure hope your wife manages to talk her into coming along. I don't like this one bit.”
“You and me both,” I said, looking at the street again. “I don't know what's happened here, but it ain't good.”
For several more minutes, we watched the town, while Eryn and Chrystal wrestled with Chrystal's fear. Finally, though, something got through, because when Eryn came up beside me, Chrystal was with her, pale and drawn, but mostly composed. At least she wasn't shaking like a leaf anymore. There was a determined look on her face, though I could tell it was something of a mask. She was holding it together, but only through sheer willpower. “We're good,” Eryn said. “Let's go.”
I stepped back to lock up the truck. If someone or something was really hell-bent on screwing with it, locking the doors wasn't going to do squat, but it was a vaguely reassuring gesture when faced with the vaguely threatening, silent t
own. Then it was time to move in.
The first block of the main street was mostly fronted by a couple of small car dealerships, gas stations, and pawn shops. One of the pawn shops had a window smashed out, broken glass scattered over the sidewalk in front of it, but the store was dark, and there was no one near it. A tiny Toyota dealer had had every single vehicle vandalized; windows were smashed, fenders were scratched, and tires were slashed. The Hyundai dealership across the street from it was untouched. Both were equally silent and abandoned.
We walked up the street, keeping off to the left side a little bit, not so much to stay out of the nonexistent traffic, but to be able to dash to some kind of cover if the street suddenly vomited bad guys or monsters. It still looked like a scene from Gunfight at the OK Corral.
As we walked past a small secondhand shop, I saw a curtain move. A moment later, I could have sworn I saw a face in a second-floor window, in an old, two story building; the kind with a barbershop on the first floor, and apartments on the second. It was a single glimpse of a pale, scared face, that vanished as soon as I looked up at it.
“Two o'clock,” Tall Bear said quietly. I looked quickly, to see a door suddenly snick shut.
“Gone too fast,” I said. “Couldn't see it. What was it?”
“Looked like a local taking a peek outside,” he said. “Took one look at us, eyes got big as saucers, then slipped back inside.”
I thought about it. So, there were definitely still people here, however abandoned the town might have looked at first glance. Maybe we could talk to some of them, and get some answers, both as to what had happened, and where Blake was.
But I had a feeling that was going to be more easily said than done. I was getting the same sort of vibe I'd gotten a few times in Iraq, when something bad was going to happen, or had just happened, and the locals were lying low, either to avoid the ambush or IED that was about to be triggered, or to avoid being seen getting friendly with the Americans, since the insurgents were probably still close by, if not in the same village. Bowesmont, for all its small-town Americana, was feeling more and more like a village in Al Anbar.
