Sweet Cherry Pie

by J. D. Monroe

  Charity sighs heavily. “Looks like Patience got Nicky in the divorce,” she says. “I should call in a tip that he’s got about fifty pounds of confiscated weed in his garage. Fucker.”

  “Oh, that’s just mean,” Georgia says.

  “It’s true,” Charity says. “He’s as dirty as a used jockstrap. I guess he chose now to develop some kind of moral compass.”

  She tries Maurice Wilder next, but a robotic voice informs her that the number is no longer in service. Donna Robinson’s phone rings through, but she doesn’t answer. Charity’s heart thumps as the recording instructs her to leave a message.

  “Hi Donna, this is Charity Pierson. It’s been a while, but I’m working a pretty ugly case and could use your help on a phone trace,” she says. “The sooner, the better. I appreciate it.”

  If Nicky is Team Patience, Donna is captain of the team, so she’s not holding her breath. As Charity stares at her contacts, she finds herself scrolling without thinking down to Patience. She went to delete the contact a hundred times, and she was never able to do it.

  The right thing to do right now would be to swallow this huge lump of pride and call her sister for help.

  No.

  She’ll wait for Donna to call. Then she’ll call Patience.

  Maybe.

  “You know any dirty cops, Georgia?” Charity says.

  Georgia laughs nervously. “Not that I know of.”

  “Clean ones?”

  “Sorry,” Georgia says.

  “Shit.”

  They drive in silence for a while. They’re sitting at an endless red light in front of a Wal-Mart when Georgia finally says, “This isn’t what I thought hunting would be.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I guess I pictured more guns blazing, holy water and fire,” Georgia says. She almost looks embarrassed.

  “Well, there’s more than enough of that, trust me. The night is still young,” Charity says. “You got your first taste with Fox, which is your problem.”

  “People say he’s a good hunter.”

  “Oh, he is,” Charity says. “A certain type, at least. Big believer in the school of big guns and loud noises.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “Rude,” Charity says. “Fox hunts because he gets off on blowing shit up and he’s too ill-natured to go in the military. There’s dozens like him out there. Nothing wrong with that, but they can’t function so well in situations like this. And I love my guns as much as the next girl, but I hunt because I enjoy fixing things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “All this crap happens for a reason. Dead doesn’t come back to life without something ripping it back across the veil,” she says. “Like I told you before, there’s always something at the center, and I aim to find it.”

  “And you always succeed?”

  “I damn well try.”

  21. AND NOW WE WAIT

  GABRIEL MULLINS’S TOWNHOUSE is one in a row of identical white units with narrow alleys between. The neighboring unit has a For Rent sign staked in the neatly mowed yard. A pair of bicycles lean against the side of the house. A beat-up maroon Buick drips oil in the driveway, and a white pickup with a DeAngelo’s Pizza sign is parked on the curb. As soon as Georgia cuts the ignition, Charity can hear the boom of music from inside the house.

  “So what do we ask him?” Georgia says.

  “We ask him what the hell he knows about Tommy’s death,” Charity says. She climbs out of the car, energized with action. It feels good to be doing something, even if they’re grasping at the finest shreds of a lead. She raps on the front door. “And don’t try that private investigator shit. That’ll catch up with us.”

  “But, I was just—”

  The door swings open, and distorted dubstep music blares out. It sounds like a Transformer mating with a subwoofer. A girl with a black pixie cut and pink highlights gives her an appraising stare, glassy eyes skating over her as she sizes Charity up. “Yeah?”

  “Hey, I’m Christina,” Charity says. She glances around. No houseplants on the porch, and the yard is scraggly but green. There’s none of the tell-tale signs of supernatural activity here. “I’m looking for Gabriel. Is he here?”

  “Gabe?” the girl says. She frowns and points to the Buick. “His car’s here… Hey Spencer!” she bellows over her shoulder. She rolls her eyes. “Spencer!”

  The music dips in volume. A male voice yells back, “Yeah?”

  “Come here,” the girl says. The music blares again, and a shirtless man walks up behind her, carrying a half-eaten slice of pizza in one hand. His springy blond curls stick out in every direction. Charity gives him a once-over. Good-looking guy, although the vacuous expression on his face says he’s probably not winning any awards for intellect.

  “What?”

  “Where’d Gabe go?” the girl asks.

  “You must be Madison,” Spencer says, eyeballing her appreciatively. “Heard a lot about you.”

  “Not Madison,” she says. “I’m Christina.”

  Spencer’s face goes slack. His remaining brain cells are fighting to the death in the open air between his ears as he tries to cover for Gabe. “Right, that’s what I meant.” She suppresses a smirk. “He went out with a friend. Him and a couple of other guys go smoke some nights.” He presses pinched fingers to his lips with a know what I mean? lift to his eyebrows.

  “You know where they went?” Georgia says.

  “Nah.”

  “What about who he went with?”

  “Nope.” He leans against the doorframe and frowns at Georgia. “You stalking him or something?”

  Charity touches his arm lightly. “Nothing like that. I’m Gabe’s cousin. I’m in town for a few days. He told me to swing by tonight and we’d hang out.”

  Spencer nods, a smile oozing across his dim face. “You could call him. He met some of these guys from doing that theater thing. Our other roommate, Jeff, gave him shit about wearing makeup for the play, so he’s real quiet about when he hangs out with them.”

  Charity nods. “Listen, my phone died while I was driving into town. Bad signal killed my battery. Do you think you could call him for me and see where he is?”

  They’ve got Gabe’s contact information, but he never called Georgia back. Maybe seeing it come from his roommate will make him actually respond.

  Spencer hesitates. People will only do so much without some kind of kickback. She doesn’t want to tip their hand yet, but she’s getting close. “Yeah, I guess.” He disappears back into the house, then returns with a cracked phone in his hand. He scrolls through his contacts and pokes the screen, then hands it over.

  She presses the phone to her ear. It rings four times, then goes to voicemail. “The number you have reached—” She hangs up and hands it back.

  “Sorry,” Spencer says. “You wanna hang out here until he comes back? We got some pizza and a torrent of the new Transformers.”

  “No thanks,” Charity says. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” Spencer says.

  “I know Gabe was in that play where that guy got killed. Has he seemed weird to you since then?”

  Spencer shrugs. “He was kind of quiet at first, but he seems okay. He says he didn’t really know him well.”

  “Did he have an idea what happened?”

  “He said it was a bad prop,” Spencer says.

  The girl with the pixie cut sidles up to him and rests her hand on his tanned back. “They want to start the movie.”

  “You sure you don’t want to wait with us?” Spencer asks.

  Charity glances back at Georgia, who tips her head slightly back toward the car.

  “Thanks, but I think we’re going to get some dinner,” Charity says. “I’ll try Gabe later.”

  “Cool,” Spencer says. “See you around.”

  He closes the door gently, leaving them alone on the porch. Georgia retreats to the car with Charity in tow.

  “So?” Charity
says. “I’m thinking we stake them out for the night.”

  “I don’t know,” Georgia says. “Is there some way to track either of them?”

  “You mean like GPS?” She sighs. “I know a guy who knows a guy, but we won’t get a response as fast as we need it.”

  “Well, I meant like…supernaturally. Like a ritual or something?”

  “There may be, but that’s so far out of my wheelhouse, it’s in another state altogether,” Charity says.

  “Fine,” Georgia says. “So we split up for the night?”

  “Seems that way. You’ll drive back to Adam’s and wait for him to show up. I’ll wait here for Gabe.”

  “Wait where? No vehicle,” Georgia says.

  Charity points to the neighboring townhouse. “I can squat over there for the night. But I’m going to need supplies.”

  Georgia drives her to the closest gas station, where she fills a bag with enough energy drinks to turn her bloodstream to pure caffeine. They’ll make her jittery and irritable, but at least Georgia won’t be around to feel or stoke her caffeine-fueled irritation. Even Georgia, who usually seems like a robot in college-girl clothing, buys an oversized coffee.

  When they get back to Gabe’s street, Georgia drops her off at the end off the street. “Call me when you get back to Adam’s,” Charity says. Georgia nods in agreement and pulls away.

  She walks briskly down the street and walks up to the vacant house like she owns it. It takes her less than a minute to pick the lock on the door and let herself in. She leaves the lights off to keep from attracting attention, and lights her way through the house with her flashlight.

  The living room and kitchen are decorated with model furniture and gold picture frames with the generic inserts still in them. There’s a refrigerator, but it’s not plugged in. She plunks the energy drinks on the counter and drags a dining room chair to the front window. She can see the driveway next door through the brand new blinds.

  She cracks open one of the drinks and sips it. It tastes like carbonated cough syrup and strawberry flavored acid. She’s halfway through it when Georgia calls. “I’m at Adam’s.”

  “Is he back?”

  “I knocked. Nothing.”

  “Damn,” Georgia says. “Hold on, I’m putting you on speaker.” She shuffles something, and the speaker goes staticky. “You know, I hate to just sit here.”

  Charity kicks off her shoes and slouches down in the chair to get comfortable. After a moment’s consideration, she takes out her silver knife and balances it on the window sill. “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “I’d think you’d be equally frustrated.”

  “Oh, I’m frustrated,” she says, toying with the pop tab on her can. “But what do you propose we do differently?”

  “I’m not trying to start anything,” Georgia says, a defensive edge creeping into her tone.

  “No, seriously. I don’t know what else to do. I can tell you what I want to do, which is to hang Adam Keller up by his nuts and beat the truth out of him, but he’s not around. And I can’t magically find either of them.”

  Georgia sighs. “So we just wait?”

  Charity smiles a little. “We just wait. Worst part of hunting. Other than getting your ass handed to you on the regular.”

  “We haven’t had that at all,” Georgia says. “Well, except the theater.”

  “Oh, that. I seem to recall a pissed-off ghost knocking you ass-over-teakettle into an orchestra pit,” Charity says. “Trust me, your time will come. A lot of the time, we have to react. Something terrible happens, and we have to try to put all the messy bits back together to stop it from happening again.”

  Long silence. “If one of them is the killer, they could be killing tonight. And we might not be able to stop them.”

  “We might not,” Charity says.

  “How in the world are you so calm?”

  “At the end of the day, there’s only so much we can do. What else do you suggest? Drive all over town and hope we get lucky enough to run into the right one?”

  “I guess,” Georgia says. She sighs. “Okay, I’m going to go. You good?”

  “I’m good,” Charity says. “Let’s try to text every fifteen minutes. Make sure we’re both awake.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Happy waiting, Georgia.”

  22. CIRCLE OF LIFE

  HIS ARE THE HANDS of a god. His veins run molten hot with lightning. His heart roars with the thunder of creation. He is the shadow.

  He is invincible.

  The pungent smoke makes his head swim, distancing him from the divine glory that is his body. He runs his fingers over the carved hilt of the knife, letting them learn its topography like a lover’s body. Each ridge and crevice is like holy scripture. The wood is warm and alive under his touch.

  Electricity surges down his spine and into his bloodstream like fireworks. Heat rushes to his crotch, and he feels himself stiffening.

  With his other hand, he passes the smoldering joint back to his prey.

  So stupid.

  So weak.

  Gabriel’s blue eyes are glassy and docile. Like a doomed cow in the chute, blissfully unaware of what awaits. It almost takes away the fun of the hunt. For a moment, he considers telling Gabriel to run, just to make this a challenge worthy of his power.

  Instead, he leaps into his friend’s lap, straddling him like a drunken conquest as he slams the knife upward into Gabe’s gut. At first, there’s resistance when the blade hits the tough layer of muscle, and then a sudden rush forward as it penetrates delicate viscera and wedges into bone.

  Gabriel doesn’t scream. Instead he makes a clipped hurk sound as his hands fumble to pull the blade out.

  He yanks the blade free and shoves Gabriel back into the damp sand. Blood glitters like black diamonds in the moonlight. Gabriel tries to get his hands under himself and push up, but he drives his foot into his friend’s chest. Gabriel groans and flattens, bloody fingers digging into the dirt. He slams his foot down again and again until he feels the satisfying crunch and shift of shattering ribs under his heel. Gabriel’s blue eyes are wide and unbelieving, head lolling to the side.

  The knife glows in the moonlight, pulsing with a slow heartbeat.

  “For the life eternal,” he says. Power rushes through him as he raises the knife high overhead, then plunges it down into flesh. There is no resistance as steel parts skin and saws against bone. He yanks the blade back, slicing along the gentle curve of rib bone to open the wound. His fingers press into the gash, and he feels for the sharp, shattered edge of bone.

  Gabriel screams now, but there’s no one to hear him. No one will bear witness to his beautiful sacrifice. He twists and pulls the fragmented bone out, muscles straining as he snaps Gabriel’s ribs open.

  Gabriel doesn’t live to see his own lungs, laid out like the glistening red wings of a phoenix under the watchful eye of the moon. His friend takes three more breaths before his heart shudders and beats its last.

  He was weak, but he serves a greater power in death than he ever did in life. His existence now has purpose.

  Gabriel’s eyes stare unblinking at the distant tree line. Beautiful eyes, blue as the sky. He takes one for himself, slicing through sinew with a flick of his wrist. The gentle glow of the knife dims. The tension leaves him, and a sense of peace washes over him. He feels sated.

  It is done.

  23. BREAKING NEWS

  BROCK SLOWLY PEELS OFF a black T-shirt, unveiling a broad, chiseled chest tanned to golden perfection. No wonder his damn shirts are so tight. She hesitates, then presses her hand to the smooth muscle. He smiles that crooked smile of his and captures her mouth in a kiss that startles her with its ferocity. She forgives his indiscretions in a split second. How can she not? His hands are all over her, strong and rough-dry from years of work. His touch is electrifying, slipping lower and lower until the bell rings and who the fuck set an alarm clock when she’s about to—

  “Son of a
…” she croaks. Her phone screeches and vibrates in her lap. “Thanks for that.” Almost six in the morning. “Shit!” She accidentally hangs up on Georgia. She calls right back. “Shit, I dozed off.”

  “I know, you missed your last check-in. It’s all right,” Georgia says. “I got something.”

  “Adam?”

  Georgia hesitates. “Don’t know yet. I’m almost there to get you. Meet me at the end of the street.”

  Charity staggers to her feet and gets a wicked case of the spins, like she went to sleep and woke up still drunk. How can she feel so shitty after less than thirty minutes of sleep? And her subconscious is a real asshole for that dream.

  She swipes through her messages. There’s another one from Randall, thanking her for the tip on the Catholic priest. Nothing from Donna Robinson.

  Shit.

  Empty drink cans litter the floor. Her body is exhausted and super-charged on caffeine and sugar at the same time. She feels manic and sick-drunk, which is not awesome. After stuffing the empty cans into her bag, she sneaks out the back door and jogs down the street.

  It’s still half dark out, with the sun just starting to ease over the dark slopes of townhouse roofs. A man jogs down the opposite side of the street, tugged along by an energetic German shepherd. When she gets to the stop sign at the end of the street, Georgia is already idling there. Her cheeks are flushed with excitement as Charity sinks into the passenger seat. “We got a body.”

  Adrenaline hits her, like an injection straight to the heart. “Where?”

  “I got an address,” Georgia says. “They just called it in.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I got bored last night,” Georgia says. She holds up her phone. “I listened to the local police scanners. There’s an app for everything these days.”

  “Shit,” Charity says. “Only a body? No suspect?”

  “As of right now, only the body,” Georgia says as she pulls out on the main road. “The reporting officer says, and I quote, ‘it’s fucking ugly.’ Sounds like it could be our thing.”

  “Did they identify it?”