She forced herself to move deeper into the kitchen and saw Ted’s bare feet poking out of his pyjama legs. She felt guilty instantly as a wave of relief swept through her. It wasn’t Charlotte. She stepped closer to Ted to make sure. There was so much blood and his head was twisted at a such a severe angle. Maura edged closer and saw that his neck had been nearly sawed through. His head still attached to the rest of his body by a thin glistening spinal cord.
She backed out slowly, and when she was clear of the body she screamed again, “Charlotte!”
Away from the gore of Ted’s blood she found her strength and her legs and raced up the carpeted stairs to the bedrooms on the second floor. Charlotte’s was pink and decorated with pictures of puppies and princesses and all that fluffy girly stuff. Maura ripped open her closets, checked behind doors even dropped to the floor and searched under her bed.
Nothing.
She checked the master bedroom, the spare one Ted used as an office. Empty.
“Charlotte!”
“Maura?” a voice called out from downstairs.
Maura raced downstairs and found Mr. Ramirez from next door. His face was concerned and she saw that he stayed near the door. One foot on either side of the doorway.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Call the police.” Maura told him. “Now.”
“The police?” he said, staring around the inside of the house. “You get robbed?”
Maura pulled her phone from her pocket and stabbed at the digits until the phone started to ring. She turned on the basement light and flew down the stairs. The basement was unfinished and stacked with boxes and a pool table Ted had bought online and still hadn’t set up. Still she checked the closets in the basement and found nothing as she waited for the emergency operator.
“911 emergency how can I direct your call?”
Maura climbed back up to the main floor and collided with Mr. Ramirez. He was backing out of the kitchen, his face was bleached of his usual tan. He stared at her suddenly, terrified.
“He took my daughter.” She screamed into the phone. “He took my little girl.”
18
Nyah sat in the cafe staring at her phone.
She was fucked.
She was in an unfamiliar city with enough weapons in the trunk of her Camry to stage a coup with nowhere to go. She had been assigned to travel to this city to protect a Reaper that didn’t want her help. Or, the worse scenario, was already dead. That would explain the not answering the phone bit. She had been sitting in the same cafe for an hour now working on her third espresso calling the only contact number she had for the Reaper every ten minutes without success.
Her cell phone rang and she snatched it from the table. She checked the screen.
Who the hell was Ted Houston?
“Hello?”
A woman’s voice raspy and hoarse from smoking a pack a day said, “Is this my overwatch?”
Nyah rechecked the phone screen.
“Who is this?”
The woman said, “What?” to someone she couldn’t hear, and then came back to the phone, “Nyah, sorry. Is this Nyah Foster?”
Nyah tensed in her seat, scanning the other the three people in the cafe typing away on laptops or reading ratty paperbacks.
“Who is this?” she snarled into the phone. “How did you get this number?”
“It’s Haden Church.” The woman on the phone said. “My verification code is Casablanca1942.”
Nyah relaxed a fraction of an inch. The code was correct, but the voice was all wrong. Haden Church was a man. Or so she was told. So unless he was purposely changing his voice over the phone, he was…
“Are you…” Nyah lowered her voice and scanned the coffee shop again. A bored barista was taking a selfie behind the bar; the rest were unchanged. She hunched her body around the phone. “Are you…in the nether right now?”
“In the nether?” Haden said. “Are you serious? Who talks like that? In the nether. Jesus.”
“Are you in transit, Mr. Church?”
“In transit? Yes, okay, that sounds better. I am currently in transit, but you gotta drop the Mr. Church part.”
Nyah stood and powered to the front door of the cafe, slamming through the front doors.
“Unprotected?” she said. “You’re in transit unprotected? Where? Where are you exactly?”
“Yeah, Moses said you were a little high strung. Something came up, and we couldn’t wait for you. You were late.”
Nyah keyed her way into the Camry and fired up the engine forcing back the scream that she wanted to unleash through the phone. Did he not realize that his life was inexplicably tied to her own?
“Where is your body?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll get to that. I need you to pick up some things on the way over.”
She put the car back into park and fumed. She was not an errand girl. Who the fuck did this guy think he was?
“What things?” she snapped.
Nyah put the phone on speaker and pulled a small notepad from her breast pocket. She listened to Haden’s laundry list of items and wrote down a single word on her little notebook: blood and then stopped. When he finally finished talking she said, “You’re out of your mind. You need to come back to your body, and we will find another way.”
“Sorry, no can do,” Haden replied.
“Where am I supposed to get blood plasma? I’m trained in advanced first aid…”
“I got a feeling your CPR training and some tourniquets aren’t going to cut it on this trip, darling.”
Darlin’?
She thought for half a second about killing this Haden Church asshole herself. Nyah squeezed the phone until it creaked.
“Just make the list happy. All of it and get to the Doubletree. The one on Fallsview.”
“You’re at the Doubletree?” she asked. “A public hotel?”
“Yeah. They got a Starbucks in the lobby and a great bar.”
“You’ve hidden yourself at a public hotel with no security.”
“There’s a do not disturb on the door and from what I’ve gathered so far a guests privacy is taken very seriously there.”
Nyah felt her stomach tighten. This guy is going to be dead in a week. Maybe less. She wondered if he would even last the day.
“What’s your room number?”
“I can’t remember.”
“What?”
“The room is registered to —”
“Please don’t say Haden Church.”
Haden laughed a dry cackle and started coughing.
“That’s funny.” He said and then said to someone else, “She’s funny. I like her.”
“Who are you talking to?” Nyah asked.
“To Moses.”
“Moses is okay with this?”
“I told him he could stay home, but he’s a team player,” Haden replied. “Anyways, the room is registered to Victor Lazlo.”
“Who’s Victor Lazlo?”
“Exactly right? You can’t always be Rick. Although, it hurts to step away. Rick was always so cool. Don’t you think?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Rick Blaine? Victor Lazlo?”
“Still nothing,” Nyah said.
“From the movie Casablanca?”
“Never seen it.“
“Sacrilege. It’s my favorite movie.”
Nyah waited on the line.
“I’ll have to check it out. Maybe after I finish collecting blood plasma.”
“Feisty.” He replied. “I like it. I’d say you got about an hour, so hop to it there, sport.”
Sport?
“An hour? Are you serious?”
“Extremely. We’re on a pretty tight schedule here, I’m afraid. A little bit of a time crunch.”
“Are you going to at least tell me where you’re going?”
“We’re gonna try and get a meeting with Olivia Danforth.”
“The blood sing
er? Haden, no! Wait!”
“See you in a bit,” Haden said over her. “Don’t be late!”
And then the phone went dead.
Nyah furiously hit redial, but the phone just rang and rang.
A Blood Singer? She recalculated his odds of surviving and settled on him being dead before nightfall.
The voicemail kicked in, and Ted Houston politely asked you to leave a message.Nyah sat slumped in the car with the engine running.
A Blood Singer.
She knew there was one in Prague, but they would need a gate to get there. If she could beat him there, she could reason with him. Stop him if she had to. She tried to think of the closest one, and couldn’t. Christ, she was out of her league here.
He was dead. That much was for sure. All Nyah could do was follow her orders, and technically Haden was her superior. But that seemed likely to change over the course of the next hour. If they found a gate and met with the Blood Singer, he more than likely would be dead or severely wounded. Hence the blood plasma. All she could do was everything by the book and file a report. She said a quick prayer to whoever was listening, hoping that Haden Church wasn’t as stupid as he sounded.
19
“Tell me about this gate,” Haden said. “It’s a hotel?”
The ancient Honda was shaking something fierce beneath them as they carved down the two-lane highway. Haden had to crack the window to let out some of the funk as the juices, and other bodily fluids that had seeped out of Edna during her death made the interior of the car smell like a slaughterhouse in July.
“Was,” Moses replied. “Was a hotel. Hotel Olga. Been closed for years. The gate is off the kitchen on the west side. Powerful place. Back in the day, holy shit, there was some sweet ass parties in that place.”
“But its closed now though, right?”
“It's been closed for the last forty years, Haden. Last I saw it the place was falling apart and surrounded by a fence that was doing all kinds of leaning. We’re good. Trust me.”
For a while, there was nothing but the shimmy of the Civic threatening to shake apart and palpable miasma of rot.
“What you think of Nyah?” Moses asked.
“Who?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Haden.”
“She sounded nice,” Haden said. “A little tense.”
“You know she was the one in that Pennsylvania thing, right?”
“In the woods,” Haden said. “Yeah, I remember hearing about that. Surprised they gave her another gig after that.”
“The way I heard it, she didn’t have much of a chance.” Moses said.
Haden cut his eyes to Moses.
“She sounded capable. Let’s see how this plays out.”
“You know it's not too late to change your mind. This isn’t a sanctioned mission, Haden. If Madeline or anyone at the Ministry finds out, there could be repercussions.”
“Like what?”
“Isolation.”
Haden stared at him while they were stopped at a traffic light.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve heard of the Ministry doing that to some of the Reapers in the past. They won’t listen to orders or don’t follow protocols so they can’t be trusted. But they’re too valuable to cut off, so they send out a team to grab them and take them back to home base. Keep them in isolation where they can be protected and then only allowed to come out and play when required.”
“Fuck that.”
Moses grunted.
“I’d go insane.”
“It can happen, Haden,” Moses said. “Wouldn’t be the first time, neither.”
The light turned green, and Haden turned right into the parking lot and stared up at the building. It wasn’t an abandoned hotel. It wasn’t even a hotel. Not anymore.
“Fuck me,” Moses whispered.
Haden just shook his head.
Crowds of people streamed out of the burger joint carrying brown bags loaded with Jr bacon cheeseburgers, baked potatoes, slurping on sodas.
Haden parked in front of the dining area where a table of teens gave the old woman in the beat-to-shit Honda before they went back to studying their phones.
“A fucking Wendy’s?”
Haden turned off the engine and slumped in his seat.
“I told you I hadn’t been here in a while,” Moses said. “A long while.”
“Apparently they’ve done some remodeling.”
“The gate in Westchester…”
“It’s too far. We don’t have the time.” Haden said.“We’d never make it there and back.” Haden stared through the window now, creeping the kids out. One of them, wearing a backward hat and two golf shirts, with both collars popped, held up his phone and snapped a picture of him.
Moses didn’t know what to say, so he wisely said nothing.
Then Haden got out of the car.
“Haden?”
Haden straightened his dress and strode up to the front doors. He watched as the four teenagers unabashedly stared as he made his way to their table.
Moses tried to get in the way, but Haden powered through.
“What the hell are you doing?” Moses asked.
“Go find the gate,” Haden told him. “I got this.”
“Is she fucking talking to herself?” one of the college kids asked the table.
“Jesus Christ, Grandma.” The kid who had taken a picture of her earlier said. “I think you missed your weekly shower.”
“More like monthly.” The only girl at the table snapped. “Look at her dress.”
Haden glanced down at his dress. The light green material was soaked with sweat and other unidentified fluids.
“Is that blood?” someone whispered. “Is she on her period?”
The young kids peered at her now with real interest. No longer was it merely a fun distraction ripping on a possibly demented Grandmother. A hint of danger was added in there now.
“Let's just get out of here,” Moses said, but Haden ignored him and addressed the table.
“I need two of you strapping young lads to help me get something out of my car.”
“Sorry crazy smelly lady.” The shutterbug kid said, snapping another candid picture of her. “We gotta get going.”
Sewn into the front of Edna’s dress were two deep pockets. One held Ted Houston’s cell phone and a couple of old wadded up Kleenex balls. Haden dipped into the other one.
When he withdrew his chubby hand Freddy’s gun was pointed squarely at the face of the two shirts wearing douchebag. “I really need your help, son. Now.”
Everyone froze.
“Holy shit!”
“Is that real?”
“What the fuck, lady?!”
“You go and help an old lady out. It’s in the back seat. Bring it in here. Chop-chop and I’ll stay here with your friend. It’ll take two minutes.” Haden said. “I tried to be nice, but…you know kids these days.”
“Okay, okay,” Collar-pop said, his voice squeaking into a falsetto.
“And if you take off or do something else stupid, I start shooting, and the first to die is this one here,” Haden told them, aiming his gun between the eyes of the terrified girl sitting stock-still in the booth.
Haden looked at the college kids sitting paralyzed in the booth.
“Now.” He said.
The kids jumped up, scrambling out of their seats and through the glass front doors.
“It’s in the back seat.” He called to them.
Haden slid into the booth across from the girl left behind as collateral. Her nose was pierced through the nostril, and her lips had hoops pushed through the corners. Her pale face looked a lot younger now since fear had stripped away all the malice. Added to which her smile was gone.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Wendy.”
Haden laughed, “No shit?”
Wendy looked ready to piss herself.
“Are you really gonna…kill me?” she whispered
.
Haden leaned in closer to her across the table and watched as her nose wrinkled smelling his rot.
“That depends.” He said. “Are you gonna share your fries?”
She shoved the tray toward him.
“Take’em.”
“Oh, then we’re good.” He said, popping a handful into his mouth. “Starving.”
Haden fed another fry into his mouth and watched the two other guys open the back door and discover Freddy in the back seat. He watched them lean in, smelling the rot and then…
Both of them jumped back, and the fatter one screamed a little, clamping his hand over his mouth. They both stared back through the window of Wendy's diner looking shell-shocked and terrified.
Haden couldn’t help himself. He laughed, smiled and waved, making the ‘bring it inside’ gesture.
The temperature dropped, and Wendy rubbed her forearms as goosebumps appeared.
“You’re unbelievable,” Moses said. “You know these kids will never be the same.”
“Maybe for the better,” Haden replied.
Wendy looked up sharply from the barrel of the pistol to Haden.
“Sorry, what?”
He waved her away. “Talking to myself.”
“You find the gate?” Haden asked. Wendy stared at the space the old lady was talking to and found nothing.
Moses nodded, as he watched the two young boys wrestle Freddy’s body wrapped in the area rug out of the Honda’s back seat. Wendy watched too.
“What is that?” she asked.
“That?” Haden told her hoisting himself out of the booth to his feet. “Is Freddy. Can you get the door for them, darlin’?”
Wendy slid quickly out of the booth and jogged to the front door holding it open for the collar pop guy and the fatter guy. The thicker guy’s shirt looked stained with a stream of brown puke. He looked ready to pass out.
Three short lines of customers were standing in line and staring at them now. A weird tableau of a dirty old lady and three teens that were carrying a body wrapped in an old carpet.
The Blood Singer_A Haden Church Supernatural Thriller Page 7
