Seraph of Sorrow

by MaryJanice Davidson

  He paused. Yes, he could finish off his son, and then his injured wife without much trouble. What of Glory? An overrated elderly woman, whom he’d never seen kill or hobble a soul in his life. Yes, the stories beaststalkers still told of her teenaged exploits were impressive—but old. Dispatching her would be a long-awaited pleasure, if it became necessary.

  But then, what of Lizzy? What of her daughter? What of Jonathan Scales?

  An unbidden memory emerged through the fog of time: a statue of gold, in the shape of a dragon, bathing in a sea of unnamed horrors. Hank remembered nothing more than that statue, yet he knew he had barely escaped Smokey Coils with his life that day. What other dread shadows waited for him, if he went after Jonathan Scales?

  He took his foot off his son, rapped the boy’s jaw with a steel toe, and stood tall. “So you’ve chosen a side after all, Wendy. Shame it wasn’t the right one.” He spun on his heel and headed for the door. “Neither of you are welcome at my house.”

  “I wouldn’t go back there to live with you,” Eddie gargled, “if dragons burned down every other house in town.”

  “They may do just that, by the time you and your mother are through.”

  The days that followed were hard for Hank. The Blacktooth house was too quiet, and when he learned his son and wife planned to live next door with the Scaleses, he could not abide the place anymore. Nor would a hotel do. Winoka had only two kinds, derelict-depressing and weekender-expensive.

  He turned instead to another beaststalker family. Jim and Sarah Sera were not what he would have called close friends, but Sarah served on the city council with him, and they were all he had at this point. They agreed (reluctantly, he noticed) to let him stay for a while . . . “Until you can make it work with your family again,” Sarah told him with a skeptical eye.

  Life at the Sera household was torturous. Both of the Seras were devotees of Glory Seabright. Worse, they knew his own thoughts on the mayor. Sarah treated him with the distant respect of a colleague; Jim plainly did not trust him; and their daughter, Amanda, avoided all three adults as often as she could. The second day he was there, as he was coming out of his guest room, he heard the girl’s end of a phone conversation through her closed bedroom door.

  “Ugh. Yes, Abigail, he’s still here. Can we . . . Yes, Amy, it’s very funny. Hoot it up. Care to join in, Anne? Whatever. Listen, guys, can we please talk about something else? I know it’s superfascinating to you all that Eddie Blacktooth’s lame father is mooching off my parents, but I find it PFP. What? Geez, Anne. PFP. ‘Pretty freaking pathetic.’ Do you not listen to your friends when they talk—I’ve been using that expression ever since he moved in—”

  He fumed and tromped down the carpeted stairs to find something to eat.

  “Hank, have you seen Amanda?”

  Hank barely looked up from his book. “No.”

  There was a worried silence, which made him look up. Sarah did not look well.

  A twinge of conscience rattled him. “Have you tried her friends?”

  “I tried the whole A-List.”

  “Come again?”

  “A-List. All her friends have names that—it doesn’t matter. They all missed her at school today. In fact, I can’t remember seeing her this morning before school at all. I’ve called her phone six times, but I don’t even get her voice mail.”

  “Battery’s probably dead. Does she have a boyfriend? We could call him.”

  “Not . . . I don’t think . . . I’m not sure . . . It’s so hard to tell with kids these days. Besides, I’ve checked her room and there’s nothing missing. I don’t think she’d run off without—”

  She was wringing her hands and shifting on her feet. Hank exhaled and got up off the couch. “Where’s Jim?”

  “He just left for business in Chicago. He’s supposed to be gone for weeks. I called him and he said he’d come right home if I was really worried, but I didn’t want to get him upset . . . I mean, we have a weekend alone planned down South after he gets back, and he’s really busy with this project to get it done on time, and what if it’s nothing . . . ?”

  “We should talk to Mr. Mouton.”

  “I left a message for him at the principal’s office, but no one’s returned my calls.”

  “Let’s go find him.” It felt good to take charge of this situation.

  “Oh! Well, sure . . . but what if she comes home while we’re gone?”

  Good point. Jim’s lucky to have a wife who thinks under pressure and works as a team. “Okay, you stay here. I’ll talk to Mr. Mouton.”

  A few minutes later, Mr. Mouton answered his front door. “Councilmember Blacktooth? To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Amanda Sera didn’t come home from school today.”

  The principal cocked his head and searched behind Hank.

  “Sarah’s waiting at home, and Jim’s out of town. They asked me to check with you.”

  “I see. Well, I’m afraid I don’t commit attendance rolls to memory, so I’m afraid . . .”

  “Then we’ll go to the school together and look them up.”

  “Now?”

  Hank slammed his hand onto Mouton’s shoulder, and the slight man jumped. “Now.”

  Winoka High at nighttime had an uneasy feel—too dark, too large, and too empty, like a cruise ship at sea with no guests. Hank hadn’t visited the building much as an adult, and he found some areas familiar while others seemed different. New carpet? Lighter wallpaper?

  Mr. Mouton led him to the administrative offices, flipping through keys and tunneling through doors. The principal’s own office was behind four different locks. Why the man was protecting crappy vinyl and fiberglass chairs with so much hardware, Hank could not figure.

  The top drawer of the cheap, gray file cabinet slammed open, and Mouton began flipping through. “Attendance records are notoriously unreliable,” he explained. “Most of the time, parents pull children out of school without so much as a phone call. It’s only weeks later that we’re able to sort out the excused absences from—”

  “This is not,” Hank interrupted, “an excused absence.”

  “I suppose we’ll see” came the sniffed reply. “Here we go—today’s records . . . M, N, O, P . . . Okay, here’s S . . . Sabathany, Samuelson, Saxon, Scales, Scofield . . . Here we go, Sera. Amanda. Marked as . . .” His eyes followed his finger across the file. “Absent. Unexcused.”

  Hearing one of the previous names gave Hank an idea. “What about Jennifer Scales?”

  “Councilmember, I don’t think it’s appropriate for—”

  Hank drew up to full height and cornered the sniveling bureaucrat. “You and I both know what that girl is, Mouton. I want to know if she was absent, too. If she’s responsible for Amanda’s disappearance, and her parents find out you didn’t cooperate with me . . . Well, you’ll be lucky if Mayor Seabright gets to you first.”

  “Fine! Fine!” The principal’s shaking finger moved back up the file. “Scales, Jennifer. Um . . . she was . . . in. She was here!”

  It doesn’t matter, Hank steamed. She’s still a suspect. So is everyone she knows.

  “What about that boy Skip? His last name’s a W . . . Williams, or Windsor, or . . .”

  “Wilson.” Mouton flipped a few pages. “Tardy. Excused.”

  Hank thought some more, snapping his fingers. “And that girl Susan? Elm-something.”

  “Elmsmith.” Flip, flip, flip. “Present.”

  He thought some more and gritted his teeth. “What about my son?”

  “Eddie?” Mouton looked like he was about to ask why Eddie’s own father wouldn’t know if his son had attended school; then he clearly thought better of it. Flip, flip. “Present.”

  Eddie knows. He had no proof, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Amanda’s missing because of something that Scales girl-freak did. And Eddie knows about it.

  “Will there be anything else?” The question came out a bit coldly; Hank guessed Mouton was redevel
oping his spine.

  “No. Thank you. Good . . . wait.”

  His eyes had strayed down to the uncluttered desk. A single file lay there, its bottom edge parallel to the desk’s edge. The label on the pale green tab had three words typed in capital letters: NEW STUDENT APPLICATIONS.

  “Did you admit any new students recently?”

  “One today, in fact. A certain Andeana, though I think she prefers ‘Andi.’ Her paperwork’s in there.”

  Hank flipped open the file and found her application right away. His blood ran cold the moment he began reading the first page. Little Andeana did not give up very much. She had answered nothing about family, or hometown, or frankly a whole bunch of questions Hank would have considered critical for a school to know. Yet what she did write, if Hank was reading it correctly, wracked his nerves.

  Was he reading it correctly? He couldn’t be sure. Foreign languages were not his forte.

  “Who came in with this girl?”

  Mouton bit his lip.

  “No one came in with her? You just let this girl come in alone off the street, fill out paperwork—barely—and you admitted her into class?”

  “Of course not. One of our teachers spoke for her.”

  “What teacher?”

  Edmund Slider, for a public servant, was a very hard man to talk to.

  He’s not stupid, Hank mused as he watched the man leave the school with the help of his live-in girlfriend, Tavia Saltin. City records were extensive on both of them, of course. How Glory tolerated the presence of two known arachnids, Hank didn’t bother to wonder. Plainly, the mayor was getting overconfident, or senile, or both.

  Hank didn’t want a public confrontation with the man. He wanted a quiet conversation, to learn everything he could, without prying eyes learning what he’d learned, or hordes of Amanda’s friends giggling at him in the school hallways. There seemed to be no way to get to Edmund Slider alone.

  Nearly a week went by. With Amanda still missing and Sarah beside herself, Hank finally just walked up to the man’s front door and banged on it. A strained wisp of a woman, five or ten years older than Hank, answered. Tavia Saltin, he recognized. She looked him up and down. “We’re not interested, thank you.”

  He stopped her from closing the door in his face. “I’m not a salesman, ma’am.”

  “I know who you are. As I said: We’re not interested.”

  “I need to talk to Edmund Slider. He lives here.”

  “He’s out this evening.”

  “You can’t seriously think I believe that.”

  “That’s not my problem. You should leave now.”

  “Do I have to break this door down, with you underneath it?”

  The woman let go of the door with her hand, but as Hank moved to push it open farther, braced it instead with her foot. Her finger came up and nearly poked the intruder in the eye. “I grew up,” her thin voice pricked, “with bullies like you. Do you think you scare me?”

  He assessed her. She was no more than half his weight, and the clothes she wore revealed more bones than muscle on her frame. While not foolish enough to think size was the only thing that mattered, Hank knew the odds were against her. Maybe if he . . .

  “Aunt Tavia? You okay?” A brooding, tall shape slunk up behind the woman.

  Hank identified the face immediately and recalculated his odds of succeeding by force. “Skip Wilson. Perhaps you can talk some sense into your aunt. I need to speak with—”

  “My aunt told you to leave.”

  Hank knew the rumor: The boy was a werachnid, like this woman and the hobbled Edmund Slider. Normally that would have suggested the end of this conversation, but there was Amanda Sera to consider, and her distressed mother. “A girl from your school is missing. Amanda Sera. I’m here on behalf of her family. Of course, if you want to slam the door in my face, I suppose I’ll have no choice but to tell Amanda’s parents that they should file a missing persons report, and that this town’s authorities would do well to start their search at this house.”

  He removed his hand from the door. It did not swing open; but it did not close, either.

  “Who’s this Amanda?” the woman asked her nephew.

  Skip shrugged. “Like he said. Girl at school. Pretty popular.”

  “Might she have an enemy?” Hank wondered. “Someone who’d want her to disappear?”

  “I don’t know her that well. Like many popular brats, she pisses some kids off, terrifies others. But I never heard of her doing anything unusual.”

  “She’s from a beaststalker family, isn’t she?” Tavia’s keen eyes fixed on Hank. “Sera. Her mother is on the town council with you. That’s why you care. If she was a normal girl, or heaven forbid someone different, you wouldn’t even bother looking around.”

  He ignored the woman. “Skip, what do you know about a new girl at the school? Andeana de la—”

  “Andi?” Hank could tell from Skip’s expression that he had hit the jackpot. To the boy’s credit, he immediately realized his mistake and did not try to hide it. “Yeah, I know her.”

  “You’re friends with her?”

  The boy’s face toyed with a shade between crimson and purple. “I wouldn’t . . .”

  “It’s fine, Skip.” This new voice came from the hallway beyond, a pert but modest tone. “I don’t mind if people know about us. At school today, Jennifer was asking whether you and I were friends now. If she’s figured it out, everyone else will soon enough.”

  Skip’s features darkened at the mention of Jennifer Scales—Hank couldn’t blame him. Beyond the boy, Hank caught a glimpse of a slender brunette with tan features. Andeana, I presume. He saw no more before Tavia pulled the door in more tightly.

  “Best if we keep to ourselves, dear,” Tavia said sweetly, cold eyes still on Hank.

  “I need to ask that girl questions!”

  “Honestly! As if you have the right to ask. We’re done here. Edmund is not available—not to you, or the mayor, or anyone else. I’m sorry there’s a girl missing, but when you consider what the Quadrivium could have done and how everything ended up . . . Well, I think we can all agree this town got off lightly. Your girl is gone, and a new girl is here, and there’s nothing to be done for it. Yes, I see the impatience in your face, and I hear the threats rebuilding in your throat. Don’t you ever sing a different song? Send the authorities, if you must. If we wish to avoid them, we’ll have little trouble.”

  The door closed, ending the conversation. But Hank’s thoughts were just getting started.

  An hour later, lying in his bed in the Seras’ guest room, he kept thinking. One girl disappears, as though she never existed. At the same time, another girl shows up, as if out of the wind. Edmund Slider vouches for her. She befriends Skip Wilson and Jennifer Scales. And somewhere beneath it all, this woman Tavia and her nephew expected even more to happen. “This town got off lightly.” Which means they expected more replacements. Maybe they still do.

  Edmund Slider was a dead end. His girlfriend was protecting him, and Hank doubted he would get much more from either one of them, or from Skip Wilson. He could call the authorities, but he doubted the mayor’s cronies would find out any more than Hank had.

  That left the nagging matter of Jennifer Scales, whose name kept popping up more frequently and annoyingly than the pimples on his son’s useless, sweaty face. He would have to find a way to find out what the girl-freak knew. Talking face-to-face was out of the question—he knew he would not be able to stand next to that thing without pulling out some sort of weapon and maiming it. Unfortunately, that left a host of unappetizing alternatives.

  The father? Worse than the daughter.

  The mother? Worse than the father.

  Eddie? Given their last confrontation and the boy’s obvious love for animals, Hank doubted the conversation would last longer than two (rude) words.

  That left Wendy, who admittedly would be tough. But she was still his wife. She would consent to talk to him, even if it w
as for a scant minute. If she had spent enough time at the Scaleses’ house, there might even be some actionable intelligence in what she passed on. So he sat up in his bed and called her cell phone, and when she didn’t answer, he left her as polite a message as he could manage. He told her he wanted to talk, and gave her a time (later that night, so she wouldn’t have time to think about it) and place (in public, so she would feel more comfortable) where he would be waiting.

  Two hours later, he was sipping beer at a local bar, watching the other men watch his wife as she walked in. She is lovely to watch. He noted with satisfaction that she still wore her wedding ring. It was a glorious fragment of a jewel, flashing a clear message to each of the desperate males in this stinking joint that this female was taken. He tore his gaze away from it in time to give her a small smile as she sat next to him. “I’m glad you came.”

  She waved off the bartender. “Lizzy’s waiting for me outside. If I’m not out in five minutes, she’s coming in after me.”

  “How romantic. She never did like me.”

  “She had higher standards than I did. What do you want?”

  The inside of his cheek gave a little; he unclenched his teeth and licked the blood off them. “You know Sarah and Jim Sera? They have a daughter, Amanda, who’s been missing for days. The school doesn’t know where she is, her friends don’t know, no one does. Except . . .”

  He saw how he drew her in so easily again. The simplest details of his selfless investigation into a teenaged girl’s disappearance had Wendy frowning with concern and hanging on his every word. She leaned in as he paused. “Except what?”

  “Except another girl appears to have replaced her. Someone with ties to Edmund Slider. Someone named . . .” He paused, unsure how much to reveal. “Andi. Have you heard of her?”

  “Yes!” It was delivered with such enthusiasm, Hank was sure he could convince this woman to slip out the back door with him and come home. “Jenny’s talked about her. She’s not from here. She’s from that other universe, where werachnids were everywhere, and there are no dragons or beaststalkers. The plot that Jenny stopped, Hank!”