The Blood Singer_A Haden Church Supernatural Thriller

by Patrick McNulty

  “You! You! You…”

  Maura broke free from her own lawyer’s grasp and charged up to stand face to face with Freddy. Inches away.

  “You don’t fucking deserve her!” she had screamed, her face on fire. “You’ll never see her! Ever!”

  Her lawyer was really pulling now, grabbing her sleeve and dragging her backward as Freddy kicked out at her and screamed, his head whipping from side to side. A tortured growl grinding out of his throat.

  “But why?” Charlotte asked for the twentieth time. “I haven’t seen him in like, a month.”

  In all actuality, it had been more like twelve days but Maura wasn’t about to get into it with her. She was running late as it was and she was interviewing a candidate for the director of finance today and there would be a bunch of people waiting on her not to mention her boss. She could just see his pinched little expression checking the face of the huge Rolex that swam around on his wrist.

  “Look, Charlotte. I have to go to work and Ted’s home today so maybe he will take you to the park or play Monopoly with you.”

  “He doesn’t do anything fun,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I want to go see Daddy.”

  She was full-on pouting now. Her bottom lip stuck out and her head turned away. Maura knew it was a ploy but she couldn’t help but feel bad for the kid. The last few months of marriage had been a constant barrage of screaming matches where Charlotte rarely found a safe harbour.

  “Charlotte, please. Okay? Give Ted a chance. I’ll talk to him.”

  Maura bent down and smoothed Charlotte’s blonde hair down around her head and kissed her forehead. “You know mommy loves you.”

  Charlotte looked up and said, “When will I see daddy?”

  Jesus Christ

  Maura stood and strode out of the bathroom door, “We’ll talk about it tonight, okay?”

  “Whatever,” Charlotte replied, and spun away toward her bedroom.

  Maura found Ted in front of the television nursing a huge mug of coffee, the crumbs of an everything bagel scattered across the chest of his t-shirt. Some sports update show was on showing the re-runs of some hockey game.

  “Babe, watch this,” he said without looking at her. “Watch this pass…I mean, look at that.”

  Maura flicked her eyes from the man-boy on the couch she was currently sleeping with to the large screen tv where some overpaid athlete fired a puck into a net.

  “Ted.”

  “Wait, watch it in slow-mo,” he was shaking his head now. “unreal.”

  Maura found the remote hit the power button and the screen went dark.

  Finally, Ted swiveled around in his seat and looked at her.

  “What the hell, babe?”

  “I need to talk to you for like, three seconds.”

  “Okay, geez.” He said, brushing the crumbs off his shirt and onto the couch. Her couch.

  “What is it?”

  “I need you to play with Charlotte today,” Maura whispered.

  Ted’s face twisted in disgust.

  “Like dolls and shit?”

  “What? No. Christ Ted, she’s ten years old. Just do something with her, okay?”

  Ted did a quick scan around the living room to make sure the little kid wasn’t within earshot.

  “I don’t know how to play with her, Maura. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “Well, you gotta figure it out. Take her outside. She loves the park.” Maura replied. “I can’t be here today so I need you to help me. Okay? Just be a friend to her, Ted. That’s what she needs right now.”

  Maura searched his confused face and wondered, not for the first time lately if she had made the right choice with Ted. He was handsome and younger and a partner at his law firm, but…

  “Okay.” He muttered. “All right. I’ll take her to the paintball place.”

  “No.” Maura said, “Something she wants to do. Let her decide.”

  “Fine. I let her decide.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And then what do I get?” he said smiling at her, reaching for her.

  “It depends on how well you do today,” Maura said in return. “Make her happy, Ted. Do that? And nothing is off the table.”

  “Nothing?”

  Maura bent and kissed him lightly on the lips.

  “I gotta go.” She said, “Be good.”

  12

  Freddy sat waiting in the Coffee Corner three blocks from Maura's house picking at his blueberry muffin. He wasn't hungry. His stomach was in knots. Not nervous. Not excited. Something in the middle. He thought he might try eating something, having something other than coffee in his belly before the day began in earnest. He tore off a chunk of the muffin top and popped it in his mouth. It tasted like cardboard, wet cardboard. Freddy spit it out and dropped the moist chunk into his untouched coffee.

  He checked his watch. 9:27 am. He hit one on the speed dial and listened to it ring…and ring…and ring.. until, "Maura James." Her voice was bright and friendly and felt like a stake to the heart. He opened his mouth to say something. He almost formed the words, his tongue curling around them. And then he killed the call. He didn't want to ruin it. It took him a minute before he realized he was gripping the phone a little too tight. He forced his hand to open and the phone clattered to the table top.

  Maura JAMES.

  He hadn't heard her say it out loud before now. It grated on him. Immensely.

  Maura James? The ink wasn’t dry on their divorce and she was already using her maiden name?

  He felt his stomach acid roil in his belly. He stood abruptly. The heavy steel chair scraped against the tile floor as he rose. It was time. No more waiting. He slipped the cell phone into his pocket and stepped into the street. The air was warmer, the sun higher. He felt better just being outside.

  Maura James.

  Jesus Christ.

  Halfway to her house. Or to the house, she shared with Ted. He felt the muscles in his jaw begin to relax. The walking was helping, the exercise working out the frustration, dissipating the white-hot anger that flowed through his veins. He had to control it. He had to be smart. He turned the corner at Gale and Rice and saw the ass-end of Ted's blue Jaguar sitting coiled at the end of the drive, ready to spring. The anger bloomed again in his chest when he thought of the aged Honda Civic that he drove with the spare tire still attached to the rear driver’s side.

  He crossed the street and strolled over the sidewalk doing his best to pretend he wasn’t seething. He was just a regular guy out for a stroll. He wasn’t smiling but maybe that just wasn’t his way. He turned left off the sidewalk and lightly dragged two fingers across the electric blue paint job of Ted’s Jaguar.

  Fucking prick.

  Ted had turned the sports show back on. Charlotte could wait for a few minutes more while they recapped the game from last night. Besides, he wasn’t finished his coffee and he was still a little hungry. They had all day to play.The doorbell chimed and Ted twisted his head to the door.

  Who the hell was that?

  “Charlie?” he called. But she was already bounding down the stairs as fast as her little legs would carry her. A moment later he heard the door open and Charlotte squealed.

  “Daddy!”

  Fuck

  Ted scrambled off the couch and stepped into the hallway leading to the front door and sure as shit there he was. Freddy fucking Walton. Charlotte was sitting high in his arms, her own arms draped around her father’s neck.

  “I missed you too.” He said to her, rubbing their noses together in Eskimo kisses.

  “What are you doing here, Fred?”

  Freddy swivelled toward Ted and every ounce of joy and mirth evaporated in an instant. Freddy’s eyes were small black holes pinning Ted in place.

  “I came to see my daughter, Ted,” Freddy replied.

  “I know, but,…Maura said—”

  “Why don’t you go grab your coat, honey,” Freddy whispered to Charlotte.

/>   “No. Wait,” Ted said.

  Ted was sweating now and his heart was racing. He wasn’t used to these kinds of confrontations. He was assured by Maura that Freddy was under all sorts of conditions, police enforceable conditions, not to be within one hundred meters of any of them.

  “Charlie, come over here honey, with me,” Ted said.

  Charlotte didn’t listen. She scrambled out of Freddy’s arms and ran to the front hall closet where she slid open the door and dove inside looking for her shoes.

  “Honey,” Ted said to Charlotte, “Just hold on a second.”

  Freddy smiled at Ted, relishing how uncomfortable he was making him.

  “I want you to leave, Fred,” Ted said. “Now.”

  “Ted—”

  “Leave now, or I’m calling the cops.”

  Freddy cocked his head to the side as if he didn’t understand what Ted was saying. As if he were speaking Greek.

  “You understand me?” Ted said, sounding a lot tougher than he felt in his robe and pyjamas. “I don’t want to make a scene in front of Charlie, but…”

  “Her name is Charlotte, Ted,” Freddy said.

  Ted swallowed hard. He shifted his stance, ready to fight.

  “Fred…”

  Freddy laughed then. A small one. Just a bark more than anything.

  “Look at you,” Freddy said. “You’re pathetic.”

  “Fine,” Ted said, spinning on his heel. “Fine. I fucking gave you an out.”

  Ted marched down the hall and took a sharp left into the kitchen. He reached for the phone mounted on the wall.

  In the next instant white hot pain sliced across his throat as a stream of blood splattered the wall in front of him. The pain was replaced with warmth as blood streamed from his slashed throat and painted the front of his shirt. For a moment Ted stared ahead stupidly as jets of crimson blood painted the wood cabinets as a gurgling whistle leaked from his ruined throat. He tried to turn, a slow circle to face his attacker, but Freddy grabbed the top of his head and dragged his blade across Ted’s throat again. Deeper still. Arterial blood exploded from the wound and Ted’s knees gave out as his eyes rolled up into his head. Ted clutched weakly at his neck as he toppled to the tile floor in a heap.

  “Daddy, I can’t find my shoe!” Charlotte called form the hall.

  “Just a second sweetheart.”

  Freddy’s right hand was covered in blood to the wrist. Keeping an ear out for little footsteps approaching, he twisted on the kitchen taps and quickly scrubbed his hands clean. When he was clean enough he moved into the hall where Charlotte stood waiting by the door. She danced a little in place showing off her silky pink ballet shoes and smiling at her Dad.

  “Honey those are your dance shoes,” Freddy told her.

  She turned in a loose pirouette, the back of her bedazzled jean jacket flapping as she spun.

  “Can I wear them, Daddy, Please?”

  She was grinning at him, her smile a mile wide.

  “Of course honey.”

  Freddy eyed the set of hooks by the door where the little silver jaguar dangled from it. Freddy snatched it from the hook.

  “Those are Ted’s car keys,” Charlotte told him.

  “He said we could take it,” Freddy said.

  Charlotte pouted, pushing out her lower lip.

  “I don’t like his car. It smells funny. Where’s your car, Daddy?”

  “It's getting fixed,” Freddy replied, stepping closer to the front door.

  Charlotte scanned the hallway behind her father, looking nervous.

  “Ted will be mad you took it.” She said. “He’ll tell Mommy.”

  Freddy bent down so that he was face to face with his beautiful green-eyed daughter.

  “Honey,” he said. “everything is gonna be just fine.”

  13

  Haden opened the bedside drawer and pulled out of his cell phone. He read the screen: 23 missed calls.

  “Shit.”

  “Did Nyah call?” Moses asked.

  Haden nodded.

  “Twenty-three times.”

  “You should probably call her back, don’t you think? She’s bound to be worried.”

  Haden set the phone down next to the bed.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You want me to help Edna right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Well, no overwatch is gonna sanction this little side mission. So it’s either we do this without her, a quick little in and out, or we don’t do it all.”

  “Well, I vote not at all.” Moses said.

  “What? You were the one pushing this Edna broad on me.”

  “I know, I know, but after talking to her and with everything considered, you’d be going in unprotected. I mean completely unprotected with nothing but a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door to stop some asshole from the Avernus Collective coming in here. I say bail. Call in an anonymous tip to the police and leave it to them. It’s not worth it.”

  “Fuck it,” Haden said finally.

  “What?”

  “I’m going.”

  “Where?” Moses asked. “Edna?”

  Haden nodded.

  “What about the overwatch?”

  “Well, that’s on him.”

  “Her.”

  “Whatever.”

  “It’s up to you, man,” Moses said,”but I wouldn’t advise going anywhere without her.”

  “Edna said he was at the house. I’m just gonna pop over and have a chat. I’ll be back before Nyah even gets here.”

  “So you did talk to Nyah? She knows where we are?”

  Haden switched off the tv and drew the drapes closed. Dropping the large suite into a palpable darkness.

  “Haden?” Moses said. “This is a bad idea, boy.”

  “What about Charlotte, Mo? Or Maura?”

  Moses’ mouth was a hard line.

  “Edna wasn’t too clear on Freddy’s plan, Haden. They may be fine. Or they may already be dead. We don’t know and we can’t go around trying to save every single damsel in distress. You gotta pick up that phone and call Nyah. Now. Please.”

  “I gotta see,” Haden replied, dropping onto the bed. “What’s her name?”

  Moses stared at him, dark eyes shining in the dark.

  “Don’t do this.” Moses whispered. “It's not safe. If you want to go help Edna, then fine, just call Nyah and let her know where we are at least.”

  “Since when is anything we do safe?” Haden replied. “I’ll be ten minutes tops.”

  Moses stared back at him not answering.

  “I need her full name, Moses. You know how this works.”

  “And if I don’t tell you?”

  After a beat, Moses whispered Edna’s full name.

  Haden listened and said the name in his head a few times rolling it around. He relaxed his body. He drew slow deep breaths one after another, until he could feel himself relax.

  The temperature in the room dropped further and further still until frost formed on the inside of the windows.

  Moses was worried, Haden could feel it. He didn’t have to say anything. This was nothing. A quick recon mission. In and out. Have a quick chat with this Freddy asshole, definitely scare the shit out of him and straighten things out and be back before anyone noticed.

  Haden could feel the names and words and symbols begin to crawl over his flesh. Rising and falling as his body opened up to them. He could hear the whispers like claws scratching at the door of his mind. A thousand voices speaking at once. A growing white noise. He felt the words scroll across the bridge of his nose and slip into his eyes.

  His lips parted and a voice that was half his, half something else, whispered,

  “Edna Beatrice Walton.”

  Haden’s back arched as every muscle in his body pulled tight at once. The black spidery language covering his flesh rose painfully against his skin, threatening to burst through. His mouth opened and he gritted his teeth to trap the scream that was rising like a ru
naway train up his throat.

  Beside him, on the bedside table, the burner phone began to ring.

  Haden’s consciousness rises from his body and drifts upward through the ceiling of his suite into the sunshine and warm weather of the April day. Flying high above the streets and cars and everyone. Faster now he was picking up speed, rocketing toward a shitty little wartime house on the east side. Over the overgrown backyard dotted with black garbage bags. Through the roof and the curling shingles, past the rats building a nest in the attic to drop like a depth charge into the recently dead body of Edna Beatrice Walton.

  Darkness.

  Memories and experiences from an entire lifetime ran before Haden’s eyes in high speed. First Christmas, first kiss, first heartache. In that instant when his consciousness inserted itself into Edna’s body it was as if he was provided with the Coles notes of her existence. Names and faces that meant nothing to him a moment ago suddenly had meaning. He felt her love for Freddy, and Charlotte as well as her disgust for Maura. He felt hungry for sandwiches slathered in mayonnaise and lustful urge toward Dr. Phil. He felt everything that made Edna who she was in a single sudden burst of memory.

  Haden’s eyes blink open and he draws a huge breath, sucking in plastic. He blinks again but the plastic sheet covering his face is suffocating. His hands are pinned at his sides. He struggles and shifts and finally manages to get his thick hands up to his face and, using his fingers, he rips a hole into the sheet of plastic covering his face.

  Fresh air pours into the sweaty plastic cocoon he’s been wrapped in and he takes a minute to catch his breath. He lays on his back staring up at the ceiling fan. It's not moving. The whole room smells like chemical lilacs. Freddy must have really dosed the room before he left. Haden takes a second to control himself and then rips the bag wider allowing his head to pop through.

  Edna’s bedroom is how he would expect a seventy-year-old’s room to be. Heavy catholic cross over the queen-sized bed. A dresser lined with a lace runner and decorated with pictures of her son, and her granddaughter. A small jewelry box.