“Officers at your ex-mother-in-law’s house found blood in two different rooms of the house.” He said.
“Oh, Jesus.”
“But no bodies,” he finished quickly, “and your ex-husband’s car was gone.”
“The Civic was gone?”
“Yes.”
“But Freddy was driving the Jag. Ted’s Jag was in the video.”
“We know, Ms. James, we found the Civic.”
Maura went still, her sweaty hands placed palm down on the table, waiting.
“Where?”
“At a Wendy’s. Reports of a woman matching your mother-in-law’s, sorry, ex-mother-in-law’s description entering the restaurant with a gun.”
“A what?”
The detective just nodded.
“A gun,” he said again, “She was waving a gun around and forced three college kids to carry what they described as a body wrapped up in a carpet into Wendy's walk-in freezer.”
“Charlotte.” Maura spat. “Edna has Charlotte?”
“No,” the detective said, “We don’t think so, Ma’am. From all accounts, the body was too big to be Charlotte. The kids said it looked more like a man’s body.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“We know.”
“Well, who is the body in the carpet?”
The detective squirmed a little in his sat and shuffled the papers in front of him.
“Detective? Who was in the carpet?”
“We’re still looking for her.”
“Freddy’s mother got away?”
“Information was that she was still in the walk-in freezer with the body in the carpet when officers arrived, but she managed to escape.”
“Escape? The woman is over three hundred pounds with a bad knee and emphysema. How the hell did she escape?”
“Ms. James we’re doing everything we can.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“Is there anywhere else Freddy may have gone? Friends, other family?”
“No,” Maura said. “Besides his mother, Freddy had no one, but…but us.”
23
Outside of the hospital, Nyah handed Dr. Singh the keys to her rental car and told him to drive. He dropped the banker's boxes full of medical supplies that she had ordered him to procure into the back seat and slipped behind the wheel.
“Where are we going?” he asked, firing up the engine.
“The Doubletree.”
“The hotel?”
“Drive.”
Singh didn’t need to be told twice.
Inside the Doubletree Nyah and Singh, balancing the banker’s box, moved to the registration desk where upon seeing Nyah the clerk’s smile faltered for a moment, before righting itself.
“How can I help you?”
“Victor Lazlo’s room please.”
Singh chuckled, “Victor Lazlo?” he said. “From Casablanca?”
The clerk ignored him and typed the request into his screen.
“Room 1308, I can call ahead and tell him you’re coming?”
But when the clerk looked up the weird pair were already gone and he was grateful for it. He suddenly needed a cigarette and to be outside.
Nyah pressed the elevator call button and scanned the waiting area. Three people were sitting at the bar and one in the large centre seating area. No one was looking at her or the doctor.
Ding!
The doors parted, and thankfully the car was empty. They stepped inside, and the doors closed behind them. Nyah pressed the button for the thirteenth floor, and the car began to rise.
When Singh spoke his breath frosted in the air.
“Are you…”
Nyah turned and flashed her violet eyes at him.
“Planning on…letting me go?” he finished.
Nyah turned back toward the doors as the elevator dinged again, announcing their arrival.
“Not yet.” She said.
Nyah removed a slim leather case from somewhere concealed in her suit and extracted equally thin metal tools. She hunched over the door handle to the suite, and in the space of a few seconds the door was open, and they hustled inside.
The suite was large, and its massive floor to ceiling windows faced Niagara Falls.
She found Haden lying on his back.
Singh stepped deeper into the room and saw the man lying on the bed.
“Mother of God.” He whispered and nearly dropped the banker's box.
At first, the man appeared to be severely burned. His black skin was mottled with undulating growths that slipped and slithered beneath his skin as if his body were filled with snakes. Singh edged closer to the bed and saw that he wasn’t burned after all. His skin was somehow crawling with spidery black words and symbols. They pressed against the skin from the inside crawling and scrolling over his flesh endlessly. They streamed across his forehead, mixing and swirling and staining every inch of him black.
“What is this?” he asked, not taking his eyes away from the man.
“Your patient.” The woman assured him.
Blood pooled around Haden’s face. More blood had dried and stained his nose and upper lip. Nyah pressed two fingers to his neck and verified he was still breathing.
“I don’t know…what’s wrong with him?” Singh stammered. “What is this?”
Singh had studied disease in medical school and even spent a month in a village outside of Kenya where he had seen diseases and maladies that boggled the mind. Boils and rashes and gangrene that turned ordinary people into frightening monsters when left unchecked, but this was something different altogether. This was happening in front of his eyes.
“Is…are those…words?” Singh asked leaning closer now, studying the flickering symbols and characters that swam just beneath the man’s skin.
“Look at me,” Nyah said, and the doctor grudgingly did as he was told, pulling his eyes away from the sleeping man.
“Treat this man as if your life depends on it because it does. His skin condition is not the issue. That’s normal.”
“Normal? How is that normal?”
“I’m telling you to pay attention to his vital signs and treat his injuries as they come in.”
“Injuries from what? From who?”
Nyah didn’t answer but switched on all the lights in the room.
“I suggest you prepare for the worst.” She said.
24
Haden struggled to his feet as Olivia disappeared from the doorway, replaced by two more goons who jogged out onto the cobbles. They scooped up the rolled up rug containing Freddy and carried him inside.
Haden and Moses followed where they were led to a small room with a stone floor. The walls were tastefully decorated with luscious reds and golds. The two goons carrying Freddy removed his body from of the carpet letting it flop to the stone floor with a wet slap. With their task complete the two goons silently left the room, locking the heavy wooden door behind them.
“I don’t like this, kid,” Moses said. “How’d she know it was you?”
“I knew she would know.”
Moses’ head snapped toward Haden.
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I mean how else are we gonna get in here?” Haden scoffed. “Worried gypsy Grandmother? You didn’t buy that did you?”
“We need to get out of here, Haden. Now.”
“Moses, there is no other play right now. Olivia is the only blood singer that I know.”
“She’s the fucking craziest too.”
“Be that as it may, without her Charlotte has zero chance.”
“And with her, we have zero chance,” Moses said. “We done. That’s it. Done.”
“We?” Haden asked. “I thought you were already dead.”
Moses gave him a look that could burn through lead, “You know what the fuck I mean. You said you had a plan.”
“And I do.”
“Wanna share?”
“Not yet.”
Moses threw hi
s hands up and paced around the small stone room.
“You gotta trust me.” Haden said, “and re…”
“Don’t you fucking tell me to relax!”
Another massive wooden door banded in iron opened and Olivia Danforth drifted inside flanked on either side by two serious looking henchmen.
“We in the asshole of hell, Haden. The very asshole.”
Olivia smiled as she looked Haden over.
“You have really let yourself go, Haden.” She said. “I remember you looking much better in Baltimore.”
“I’m carb loading.” He replied.
Olivia turned to the goon on her right.
“I trust you’ve searched him?”
The goon was squat and thick and looked like he ate children under a bridge. He flicked his flat shark eyes to Haden and wrinkled his nose.
Olivia raised her eyebrows, daring him to defy her command, which spurred him forward.
“Raise your arms.” The goon growled.
Haden complied, getting a whiff of his vinegar scented body odour.
“It’s hard to find good help,” Haden said to Olivia as the goon patted him down. “Ones with half a brain anyway.”
The goon chuckled to himself as he leaned in running his hands over Edna’s large breasts and drooping stomach.
“Do forget the taint,” Haden whispered to him. “I haven’t checked myself, but it smells delicious.”
The goon stared at him for half a beat and then said, “She’s clean.”
“Hardly,” Olivia said. “Usually when I find you in my neck of the woods you’re hunting one of my family members.”
“Rules are rules, Liv,” Haden said. “You know that.”
“Olivia,” She corrected, “are you still working for that antiquated agency? The Ministry of the Wraith?”
“Fraid so.”
“It's amazing that a half-breed like you has lasted this long,” she said, “how old are you now?”
“Twenty-three.”
She purred. “Still only a baby.”
“The reason I stopped by is that I want to offer you a bit of work,” Haden said as she eyed him hungrily.
“For you?” she said. “Anything.” Her smile vanishes. “Why would I do anything for you?”
“I want to offer you a trade.”
Olivia drifted toward Freddy’s body and squatted down so she could reach the massive head wound. She dipped two fingers into the hole in poor Freddy’s head and slowly slipped them into her mouth.
“I’m listening.”
“This sack of shit I brought buried his daughter alive somewhere. I want to know where.”
“And I care because…?”
“You give me the exact location of the kid.” Haden said, and…“
“What do I get?”
“Me.”
“What?” Moses snapped. “What’d you say?”
Haden shot him a look. Olivia looked at Moses and then smiled.
“Uh-oh, looks like your little sidekick wasn’t in on the plan.”
Olivia’s pale pink eyes were crawling all over Haden now.
“How do I know you won’t just jump away, and leave me with this,” she said gesturing at Edna. “when I tell you his secrets?”
“You have my word,” Haden said eliciting a barking laugh from Olivia.
“The word of a traitor doesn’t mean much to me.”
“This man has buried his kids somewhere, and it’s a little time sensitive. I need to know the location.”
She smiled again.
“Who is she, Haden? The little girl? Family I hope.”
“She’s important. An innocent.”
“Aren’t they all.”
“Haden,” Moses said as he moved backward slowly, looking at the floor, the ceiling. Olivia paid no attention.
“Wait,” Haden told him.
“Let’s see what you’ve brought me.”
Haden gave her a wink.
“Only the best for you, Liv.”
Haden watched the woman’s face as she knelt down at Freddy’s feet. Her skin was nearly translucent. The white loose shift she wore did little to hide the shape of her body underneath. She was wire thin, with skeletal fingers and pale grey hair. Her eyes were a deep pink, and when she opened her mouth, it was full of small sharp teeth.
Olivia waved away the goons, and they retreated to the far corners of the room, just out of sight. No matter what the deal was, no matter what Olivia thought she was getting the scent of blood drew her inexorably to Freddy.
Moses backed away as the woman began sniffing slowly, her mouth open to enjoy every atom of the spilled flesh. Her pink eyes rolled up beneath oily lids, and she set her palms flat against the stone floor.
Her frail body moved as smooth as liquid undulating like a cobra. Her mouth opened impossibly wide and along with the stench of death came a low chorus of whispered words. It wasn’t possible. The woman’s lips were not moving, but her throat flexed and squeezed until a sound filtered into the dim room. The music was foreign and ancient and so very wrong.
Moses tried to whisper something to Haden, but Haden couldn’t hear. Listening to the Blood Singer felt like gnats were burrowing through his head. It was all he could do not to start scratching his ears. The Blood Singer continued issuing low ancient words that droned together producing an awful sound.
Haden could see Freddy’s face from where he stood, and for a moment he thought he saw Freddy twitch.
And then he was sure of it.
Freddy’s face was moving. Slowly at first, but then more and more as if there were tiny snakes squirming under his skin. Haden couldn’t look away. The veins of Freddy’s face were filling with blood, becoming engorged until they were pressing against his pale skin. Still, the Blood Singer continued her song of a thousand voices, whispering in chorus. Her body trembled as if gripped in a massive seizure. The song she sang grew to a fevered pitched and the veins pressed against Freddy’s skin began to vibrate, spiking in places.
Sharpened daggers of frozen blood pierced through Freddy’s skin. An artery on the side of his neck bulged balloon-like from the bottom of his throat, stretching the skin. The skin grew tighter and tighter until a weakness was found. A moment later a small spike of blood shot forth from the bulge. But it didn’t spray. The geyser of blood was instantly frozen into a long frozen red needle.
Haden watched as another smaller needle shot forward from Freddy’s left eye. And another from his hands. Faster now as Olivia sang, her body trembling on all fours she continued to chant and sing that horrible song. Freddy’s body was pierced from the inside out as jets of frozen blood ripped through his skin tearing rents in the flesh across his face, his arms, cutting straight through the filthy clothes he wore.
It took less than a minute.
In the end, Freddy’s body lay rigid on his back. His arms and legs splayed as hundreds of frozen blood needles stuck up straight from his body.
And then the song changed. Her singing took on a cooing quality. Not as harsh. The blood needles began to retract, to melt as it were.
Haden and Moses watched in horror as the blood from the hundreds of cuts started to pool around Freddy’s body forming a red river that moved and flowed directly to where Olivia lay waiting.
The crimson river of blood traveled like iron filings toward a magnet in one thick stream only to split at the last second. A single stream went to each of Olivia’s hands that were still placed palm down on the stone floor.
Haden watched as the blood flowed straight up through her palms.
Moses whispered, “Jesus…” and stepped back even further as they watched the blood travel up through her translucent skin.
Freddy’s blood not only filled her up but it seemed to thicken her. The veins they could see beneath the skin widened and stretched as Freddy’s blood engorged them. Still, the flow continued to rise. Her bare arms fed into the white robe she wore but the travel of the blood was seen a moment later in he
r pale throat, running up over her chin and spreading across her face.
The blood quickly coloured her cheeks, and when she opened her eyes they were no longer a dull pink, but fiery red. Her hair too was no longer faded and grey, but a bright crimson to match her eyes.
“This is not good,” Moses whispered.
Olivia slowly rose to her full height and stood before them. Her skin had returned to smooth alabaster, and her lips were full and sensual. Red eyes aside, she was beautiful.
“I know a secret,” she hissed.
“Where is she?” Haden asked. “Where is Charlotte?”
“I have to hand it to him.” She said nodding toward Freddy. “He was stubborn all right. Held on to that secret for a while. Longer than most.”
Haden followed Olivia’s almost admiring gaze to the ruin of Freddy. His skin was in tatters, and his shiny skull winked out from the deepest of her cuts. He was barely recognizable.
The Blood Singer lifted her head and set her gaze on Haden. Her smile was widening.
“Deals a deal, Liv,” Haden said. “Where is the kid?”
The Blood Singer laughed then. A hideous laugh made by every bully who ever walked the earth. An evil snickering.
“I thought you would have figured it out by now,” she said. “I’ve given you too much credit.”
Haden looked to Moses.
“I tried to tell you,” Moses said weakly. “When we came in.”
“Tried to tell me what?”
“He tried to tell you that this room is a trap,” she said. “You can’t just do your little Reaper thing and jump out of this poor old woman and back into your own body, wherever that is. This room is where you’ll be. Forever,” she said. “Or until I let you die.”
Haden looked at Moses and saw that she was telling the truth.
“Shall we begin?” she asked.
25
Singh quickly set up what little equipment he had brought with him as Nyah had not told him anything about what he would be doing or what sort of treatment he would need to administer. She had told him he would be treating a trauma patient requiring a blood transfusion but without any mechanism of injury. He was flying blind on a medical mission where not only the patients' life hung in the balance, but his own.
The Blood Singer_A Haden Church Supernatural Thriller Page 9
