by S. L. LUCK
Mavis’ small mouth puckered. “There’s trouble, Eddie, trouble like we’ve never seen. The devil’s come and I think he likes it here.”
Evie seized the cross hanging from her necklace. Dorothy’s hand went to her lips. Ed drew back from the table and looked away from their faces to the plate of cookies, though he found no answers there.
Dorothy said, “It is the devil. It is. It must be.”
“What could you do about it if it was?” Pandora’s voice came to them through Sylvia, key-minor syllables resounding from the high winds of hell.
Though they did not know why, the other women tensed as though they’d come upon a phantom in a dark alley, and the strangeness that came over them caused them to nibble at their cookies for a spot of sugar to brighten them. Ed, however, was suddenly stirred by apprehension and began sweating in his suit. With his palms slickened and his thin white hair sucked to his scalp by dampness, Ed had the peculiar feeling of being observed like mitochondria under a microscope. Sylvia, he saw, was looking at him, waiting for an answer. Casually she repeated, “What would you do if it was the devil, Ed? Run away or fight back?”
“Fight, of course.” The answer had come at once.
Sylvia’s nostrils flared. Then Ed felt it. The muscles around his pacemaker constricted. The ancient tissues of his heart palpitated. A glacial cold gripped his veins and drew blood away from his head to protect his heart. He felt faint. He—
“Mavis!” Coming from the kitchen with a tray of baked pasta, Wendy Cardinal called out. On hundreds of necks, heads swiveled to see her toss the dish onto the buffet table and hurry toward her perplexed mother-in-law. Some of the blood came back to Ed’s head and the blackness that threatened to overtake him subsided enough for him to see Sylvia’s pallor flicker from liver-gray to subtle peach, back and forth, back and forth, like a cadaver interchangeably being sucked of blood, then injected with it. “We need you in the kitchen,” Wendy implored Mavis, her eyes flashing to Sylvia. “Come, Mom. We need your help. We need it now.” The chatter of three hundred guests stopped. Remembrances halted on tongues, water glasses were held in wait, dripping noses were neglected, and even the play of children was slowed, slowed, because all sensed that something was happening.
In the new quiet, Mavis regarded her daughter-in-law with confusion. She looked past Wendy to the buffet table. “Are we out of food already?” Then, because of the seriousness on Wendy’s face, Mavis rose from her chair and collected her purse.
Through the window to the back kitchen where Dak, Jesse, and Johnny were laden with platters ready to be brought out, Sarah’s gasp made them look from the food they were trying to balance to Mavis, who was standing beside Sylvia Baker. “We just need you to come,” they heard Wendy say, for Mavis was so weighted with bewilderment that her feet did not move.
“Why, Wendy, you’re shaking,” Mavis touched her daughter-in-law’s cheek to steady her.
“Are you all right, dear? Maybe you should sit.” Evie patted the lone unoccupied seat between herself and Sylvia, whose lips moved in soundless whisper, and whose black tongue only Wendy and Ed could see.
“I—” Wendy began and bent over in a sudden spasm of pain.
Platters were tossed, bowls were upended, and trays of food were abandoned to the floor as Dak and the boys ran. Wendy seized her stomach, threw her head forward and vomited on Ed’s shoes. Sylvia winked at Ed and he, too, felt her terrible fingers touch the coil of his intestines. No, no you don’t, he feebly pressed outward at her from inside, employing that part of himself that still talked to spirits. Her quivering, chanting mouth ruptured into a smile. You don’t like to play, Eddie? She planted her words inside his head while Sylvia’s body mechanically moved to help Wendy like all the others. Play with me, Eddie. Back and forth, back and forth, her color went, but the crowd was oblivious. Play with me.
What … are … you? Ed directed to the devil woman. In response, she tugged his bowels. Ed lurched forward in a gasp of pain. Help me, Lord, Ed pleaded, then Psalm 23 burst inside his head. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil …
The devil-thing’s laughter seeped inside him like lethal mold. Using Him whenever it’s convenient for you, she cackled. Think it will work? She scratched his insides. Ed yelped and flared his silent prayer to God.
The next moment, Dak was beside Wendy and the boys were ushering Mavis away from the table. Sarah, who had come up behind them, said to the mob of mourners-turned-spectators, “There was a bad batch of chicken. She had a bite in the back with us before she came in.” Men in suits and women in dresses gathered around the table to help and soon Sylvia was guided aside so the table could be cleaned.
Ed instantly felt better. Pointing at his vomit-covered shoes, he said to the onlookers, “I inherited my father’s weak stomach. Always makes me sick to see other people sick.” Wendy, being escorted away by Dak, gave Ed an apologetic grimace. To Dorothy and Evie, Ed said, “If you don’t mind, ladies, I’d like to give my shoes a quick wash.”
“Of course, Eddie,” said Evie.
“You sure you’re fine?” Dorothy touched his arm.
Chester pushed himself through the crowd. “Let me through!” he growled at a woman who’d been refusing to budge. She harumphed indignantly and bumped him with her rear before turning away. “I can’t leave you alone for one moment, can I, Eddie?” Chester helped him to his feet, scowling at the other man’s shoes. “What the hell happened to you?”
“A touch of food poisoning,” Ed replied. “Not mine, however.” Chester’s nose wrinkled in disgust.
“He’s got a weak stomach.” Sylvia winked from the corner.
“Attention, everyone,” Hattie’s oldest son, Clifford, said. He tapped a microphone mounted on a podium beside a projector screen that was now unrolling from the ceiling. His bald head was patterned with the shadow of a window lattice, and he squinted as a bright spot of sun hit his eyes. Shuffling sideways, Clifford said, “As you’ve seen, we’re having a slight issue with the food service, but as Mom would have wanted, we are going to carry on and celebrate her life. We’ve ordered from Mom’s favorite pizza place, and it should be here within the hour, so please bear with us. In the meantime, please help yourself to desserts and drinks if you’re hungry, and we’ll begin a video we’ve put together that celebrates how special she was. Thank you.” He turned the microphone off as his mother’s favorite songs bloomed through the speakers and a close-up picture of her face as a younger woman appeared on the screen.
The murmur of conversation resumed while the presentation was paused to give the guests time to return to their seats. One of the ushers who had been at the service now wheeled out a mop bucket and set to cleaning up Wendy’s mess. Two Blundy and Ashurst attendants swept everything from their table into the tablecloth, which one then bundled away while the other expediently washed and dried the table before spreading a new tablecloth on top. The entire operation had taken minutes, but to Ed felt like hours as the devil-woman glared at him from behind Dorothy and Evie.
He took Chester’s arm and whispered, “Stay with them, Chess. They’re having a really hard time, and you know how to cheer everyone up.” He pulled away. Chester expanded with importance and strode to the women. Then Ed conducted himself to the men’s washroom.
It wasn’t until he was alone that Ed began to shake. He waited until one of Hattie’s grandsons departed the restroom, then removed his shoes, using a wet paper towel to wipe them. In the oval mirror, the sight of his own face caused him to drop one of his shoes, and his hand went to his quivering mouth. He’d known the devil only once before, when Bessie was taken from him, but never had he seen his flesh, never had he felt him inside his head. What just happened? Ed wondered. Splashing water on his face, he looked past the glass into himself and questioned his sanity. It would be a reasonable assumption that dementia had come at last. But amid his paroxysm of pain, had he not seen Wendy regard Sylvia with the same terror he himse
lf experienced? No matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, Ed was sure there was a moment when Wendy’s eyes locked on his own that they exchanged the indelible awareness of evil. He sighed. Whether it was the devil’s trick or old age, Ed knew he was in trouble.
A short time later, convinced of the likely deterioration of his mind, Ed emerged from the restroom to find Dak Cardinal leaning against a wall, waiting for him. The other man, normally a vision of health and optimism, looked worried. Apprehension was grooved into his forehead and his jaw was so tightly set the muscles near his ears spasmed beneath his skin. Dak said, “Just checking to see how you’re doing, Eddie. I keep a spare set of work boots in my trunk, if you want them. They’re not fancy or anything, but I think they’d do the trick.”
Ed looked to his own feet as he stood sockless in the cold leather of his shoes. “You got a pair of socks in there? About now, I’d take anything you have. When you get to my age, anything but wool feels like cement.”
“Sure do,” Dak said. “It’s not too cold outside, if you’ll join me.”
Ed tipped his head to peek inside the banquet hall, relieved to see that Chester was still with Evie and Dorothy, watching with the others the film that had begun playing on the screen. “I could use some fresh air,” he said, and followed Dak down the carpeted hallway to the glass-encased foyer and out into the cool October afternoon. As pledged, Dak opened the back door of his truck and produced a pair of socks from a storage net behind the seat. He gave them to Ed, who accepted them appreciatively.
Dak closed his truck and began fidgeting with his keys. “I’ve known you how long, Ed? Forty years?”
“Unless you’ve aged in reverse, it’s fifty-three,” Ed corrected him. “Your mother used to sit for Bessie and me before you were even born, if you remember her telling you.”
“That’s right,” Dak gave a little chuckle, and the silence between them stirred the recently settled parts of Ed’s stomach.
“How is Wendy?” he asked.
To the left, to the right, Dak glanced around the full parking lot to ensure they were alone. He lowered his head. “Except for her nerves, it’s like nothing ever happened. Once we took her away from your table, she immediately felt better, Ed. No pain, no nausea, nothing. It’s better for everyone else to believe the excuse we gave, but …” he hesitated. “There’s something strange going on, isn’t there?”
“If you’re asking if I think it was food poisoning, Dak, I do not believe anything of the sort,” Ed said to facilitate Dak’s revelation. “I’m an old man, Dakota, and the things old men say are not always believed. But let me tell you this, either dementia decided to throw a surprise party inside my head at the very moment your wife got sick, or I sat with the devil today. I’d be committed to an institution if anyone knew I said that, but more likely they’d just slip me some pills like they do to all my friends. I don’t care. It’s the truth. I know what I saw, and I know what I felt. That woman was inside my head.”
“She was in Wendy’s head, too,” Dak told him.
“Why do I get the feeling this doesn’t surprise you?”
The doors to the funeral home opened and a cluster of middle-aged couples filed out, already lighting their cigarettes. Dak took Ed into his truck where they would not be heard. Through the windshield, they watched the smokers fill their lungs with lethal relief. Neither man would meet the eyes of the other while a tide-surge of disclosure rushed from Dak’s mouth.
Ed, who’d seen much in his years yet still considered the curiosities of the world a mystery, did not doubt Dak. Instead, he shifted his arthritic hips and turned to face him. “What do we do now?”
And while Dak told him, and while Hattie’s life scrolled before two-hundred and ninety-seven guests, a single set of eyes watched Dak’s truck.
27
Three kilometers downstream from Garrett’s water treatment plant, Dan Fogel exited his cruiser and stepped onto the hiking trail that linked the city’s adventurers to Sarnia in the west and London in the east. Not yet sunrise, the morning was crisp with cold. Hoarfrost clung to the trees, the grass, and the bottom of the depleted river, so that everything was glittering white except for the splashes of blood recently gushed by the city’s third homicide victim of the year. In the dimness of the awakening day, Dan spotted Sarah, pen and notebook in hand, talking to a pair of sobbing witnesses. With his arms wrapped around the woman beside him, the man trembled as he looked from Sarah to the body he’d found, now covered beneath a yellow tarp. The woman mewled when Sarah prompted her to speak, so Sarah motioned to an EMT to check the woman for shock. Before long, both the man and the woman were sitting in the back of an ambulance, while a technician took their blood pressure.
As was his custom, Dan did not directly go to the body. He preferred instead to circle it, looking for clues, watching, seeking, feeling the area that would become his focus. Sarah waited for Dan to finish his routine while she oversaw the completion of the containment perimeter. By the time he’d made his way over, splinters of unfiltered light were slicing through the treeline, and Dan had to put his sunglasses on.
“You’re not going to like this one, Dan,” Sarah warned him as he knelt beside the body.
“I never do.” Dan squatted and lifted the tarp to peek at the woman’s face. He groaned. There, discarded beside a copse of leafless trees, a young nurse lay still, the black-purple bruises of strangulation evident around her neck. Dan knew this woman as one of the ICU nurses at the hospital, though he could not place her name. What bothered Dan, besides the senselessness of her death, was that not only had someone strangled the woman but stabbed her as well, as though the perpetrator wanted to be sure she was dead.
Dan had attended to more than his share of murder victims, so he was unfortunately familiar with the psychology behind the secondary abuse. It heavily suggested the act was intentional, and that the killer knew the victim. Random acts of violence did not often lend themselves to the kind of brutality inflicted by former lovers, neighbors, friends, or family. Sometimes the savagery suffered by victims of serial killers suggested kinship, but this was usually dismissed once a pattern was discovered.
“Do we have a name?” Dan asked.
“Tammy Elizabeth Cormoran, age twenty-eight. Reported missing by her roommate when she didn’t return home from work last night.” Sarah read through her notes, some from the witnesses, some from dispatch not fifteen minutes ago. As evident from the scrubs the victim wore, Sarah added, “She’s a nurse at the hospital.”
“Was a nurse,” Dan corrected, gently setting the tarp back over the nurse’s face. “Are you getting the feeling that we’re in some kind of last survivor’s game? I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of all this.” He gestured to the entirety of the space around him.
“It’s a shitty time for everyone, Dan,” Sarah agreed. As close as she was to Dan, she preferred to keep a barrier between her work and personal life, so he did not know about her pregnancy or Flint or the arrival of hell to their beloved city. He suspected the latter, as every citizen did in some way or another, but still she did not feel comfortable bridging the conversation with him, for fear he would deem her insane. Looking at the pouches under his eyes, she said, “You get any sleep last night?”
“About an hour. Is that a nap or a blink? I don’t know any more. I tell you, Sarah, when this is all over, I’m promoting you to acting chief, then I’m going to fly somewhere with no clocks and I’m going to sleep for a goddamn week. And if you call me, I’ll fire you.”
He dragged his hands over his face and rubbed color into his cheeks as she threw her pen at him. He picked it up and stood. The evidence technicians arrived, parting their way through the gathering crowd. Dan frowned, remembering his conversation with Father Bonner. There was no doubt the old priest was disturbed. The dreams he’d shared with Dan were not of this world, but from somewhere in the periphery of evil. It was obvious that Father Bonner expected Dan’s skepticism, and he was v
isibly relieved to have Dan listen without doubt, without interruption. Why would Dan disbelieve if he couldn’t explain it himself? In the church office, incredibly unsurprised at Father Bonner’s confession, Dan had been possessed by a terrible kind of apprehension—and the little sleep he had managed since then was filled with nightmares.
Against his professional judgement, Dan ordered a significant contingent to patrol the upcoming festival. There was no known threat, but still he couldn’t push aside the terrible dread the priest stirred in him. With the incidents of late, the contingent could be justified as a necessary precaution, and Dan hoped it proved to be just that.
A tsunami of flashes, shouts, and hollers suddenly swelled around the perimeter. A mob of national and foreign reporters rushed for answers, screaming to be heard, with local Jessica Chung leading the pack. Ignoring their cries, Dan said to Sarah, “Let’s interview the usual list first. Family. Friends. Colleagues. She got a boyfriend?”
“I’ll check,” Sarah said, noting Dan’s orders.
Glancing once more at the yellow tarp, he cleared the tightness in his throat. Then, because Dan was not convinced the victim knew her murderer, he added, “Reach out to Jan Boyden and see if she can give us any clues to who this monster is.” The head of Toronto’s Homicide Unit, Jan Boyden had worked with Dan and his predecessor many times over the years, more for the larger city’s sake than Garrett’s own, and he knew that if there was a sniff of any similar crime anywhere in Ontario, Jan and her team would know of it.
“Dan! Dan!” Jessica Chung called. “Over here! Chief Fogel, here! Here!”
Against his will, Dan’s eyes slipped eastward, where the thin reporter was stumbling and staggering in front of twenty others pushing from behind. The woman was braced against a crush of elbows and chests and the none-too-delicate prick of recording equipment. Had the perimeter been an actual wall, Dan figured Jessica would be crushed, but like a cockroach continue to live.
