Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 10

(1)

Weinstock went to do some paperwork and Crow spent some time with Val, who was awake again. They talked about Sarah’s request and then Val drifted off again, so Crow went back to the solarium to make some calls. His first was to his store and Mike answered on the fourth ring, “Crow’s Nest. We have everything you need for a happy Halloween.”

“You sound chipper, young Jedi.”

“Crow? Hey! Your friend Dave Kramer just stopped in to get some stuff for the Hayride and he told me what happened last night! I can’t believe it. How’s Val?”

“She’ll be okay.” Crow gave Mike an abbreviated version of what had happened, sparing him the more lurid details and all of the backstory. Mike kept telling him how sorry he was and to give his best to Val.

“I’ll tell her, kiddo…but listen, there’s no way I’m coming in today, and probably not tomorrow, either. You good there? I know it’s a lot to ask…”

There was a brief pause before Mike answered. “Sure, Crow…I got the routine down now. I can handle things.”

“Terrific. You know I’ll take care of you come payday.”

“Man…don’t even go there. I’m having fun here.”

“So, you’re telling me retail sales is your heart’s desire?”

“Duh, no…it’s just that I like doing this. I like being here. I feel…I don’t know…safe here.” Mike immediately added, “I know that sounds stupid and all—”

“No it doesn’t, kiddo.” The moment turned awkward and to cover it Crow said, “Take some cash from the drawer and have food delivered. Whatever you want. There’s a whole bunch of menus in the third file drawer. You need a break, just lock the place up.”

“I got it. Thanks, Crow. Look, there’s a couple customers coming in. I gotta go.” Mike hung up.

Crow frowned at the phone for a moment, saw Sarah Wolfe coming toward him. “How’s Val?”

“Sleeping.”

“Sounds like what we should all be doing. I’m heading home now to see the kids, get showered, and find some fresh clothes. I feel like I’ve been wearing these for a month.”

“I should probably do the same,” he agreed. “I must stink like a skunk.”

“A little bit worse than a skunk,” she said, trying for a joke. The effort was an encouraging sign and he gave her a smile. Sarah touched his arm. “Have you given any thought to what I asked you?”

“Yeah. About running the Festival? Sure. I talked it over with Val, and she thinks I should do it, but I still don’t know if it’s a good idea, Sarah. With all that’s happening, I’m not so sure bringing in more tourists is a good thing.”

“We have to, or the town will—”

“I know, I know.” He felt frustrated and hamstrung by having his fears on one hand and the realities of the town’s needs on the other. Sarah stood there, looking into his eyes, her need as strident as if she were shouting it. He sighed. “Oh, hell, sure. Why not?”

Sarah gave him a short, fierce hug. “Thank you, Crow…I know it doesn’t feel like it matters, not with Val and Mark and all. With what’s happening with Terry I feel the same way. But it’s what the town needs. It’ll help all of our friends. You’re doing the right thing.”

So why does it feel like I just made the worst mistake of my life? he asked himself, but to her he just smiled and nodded.

Sarah gave him another quick peck on the cheek and left. He got up and bought a Yoo-hoo from the machine, shook it, cracked it open, and drank half of it down as he sank back onto the couch, punching in another number on his phone.

“Hey, Newt? It’s me.”

“Crow…what’s…um, happening? Is there anything new?” The reporter sounded wary, and Crow couldn’t blame him.

“What condition are you in?”

“I’m a train wreck. What the hell do you think?”

“Well, maybe this will help.” He brought Newton up to speed on everything, emphasizing their belief that the whole thing was pretty much over except for Boyd’s missing body.

“Doesn’t feel over,” Newton said.

“That’s ’cause we stepped in it in the last inning.”

“Still doesn’t feel over.”

Crow said, “Whether it is or isn’t, we need to know more than we do right now. I hate like hell fumbling around in the dark. Which brings me to my next question. Are you in any condition to help me out with what’s going on?”

“If that means tramping around through graveyards with a Gladstone bag filled with stakes and holy water, then…no, I’m not. On the other hand, if you want me to help with research and that sort of thing, then I’m way ahead of you. Since I left the hospital I’ve been doing nothing but surfing the Net and sending e-mails. I’ve tracked down about twenty people, just in this end of the country, who are considered top experts on…these subjects.”

“Anything we can use?”

“The one person who seems to be the absolute golden boy of this particular kind of folklore is a guy from U of P, Professor Jonathan Corbiel. Do you remember me telling you yesterday about a website I was at that mentioned you-know-who down in Dark Hollow?”

“Sure. Something about a werewolf trial a couple hundred years ago.”

“We agreed it was either an ancestor of our boy, or he took the name symbolically. In any case, Corbiel is a real expert on that case. The Peeter Stubbe case.” He spelled the name. “The more of the case I read the stranger it gets. I’ve forwarded a lot of it to your Yahoo account.”

“Can we talk to this Corbiel guy?”

“I already sent him an e-mail. Carefully worded. I’m pretending that I’m writing a pop-culture book on the haunted history of Pine Deep and want a folklore expert I can footnote. Haven’t heard back yet, but maybe we can get him to meet us for dinner somewhere.” He paused. “Somewhere that’s not Pine Deep.”

“Works for me,” Crow said, “but before you go, there’s more stuff happening around here.” He told him about the morgue and the missing bodies.

Newton’s voice was a whisper. “Are you sure that Boyd didn’t just get up and walk off?”

“I’m pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure?” Newton said. “Oh, man…”

He hung up.

Crow made a few more calls, then walked back to Val’s room. She was only dozing and woke as soon as he entered. She turned toward him and offered him a tight smile.

“Get any sleep?” he asked, parking a haunch on the side of the bed.

“In and out.”

“I’m heading home for a bit. I got to get cleaned up, but I’ll be back here in an hour or two. Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Just…be careful,” she said, glancing at the window. “It’s dark out.”

“I will. Be back soon.” He kissed her, and left.

He met Weinstock by the elevator; he was heading home, too. Crow told him about his call to Newton.

“That sounds promising,” Weinstock said.

“It may be past time for getting proactive, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“No kidding.” The elevator was nearly to the bottom floor when Weinstock opened his coat and turned his hip so Crow could see the handle of a big pistol snugged into a belt clip. Crow cocked an eyebrow, then the elevator chimed and Weinstock dropped the coat flap.

As they crossed the nearly empty lobby, Crow asked, “You any good with it?”

“I fired a couple of rounds off when I bought it.”

“Swell.” They exited the lobby and stepped out into the parking lot. There were still dozens of cars parked in neat rows, their colors muted by the darkness except where sodium vapor lamps spilled down swatches of light.

“But I have a little edge, just in case.” Saul said, leaning close. “I had some silver bullets made. No, don’t give me that look—I know silver is for werewolves, but I figure I’ve got both bases covered. No matter what jumps out at me I’ll park one of these hollowpoints in his brainpan. Werewolf, vampire—I’m pretty sure that’s going to settle his hash.”

Crow smiled. “‘Settle his hash’? And you say I watch too much TV?” He tilted his head and cocked an eye at Weinstock. “I can’t say much for your choice of handgun, though.”

“Why not? It’s a damn .44!”

“It’s a Ruger Blackhawk. A Ruger, Saul, really?”

“Jeez…I didn’t even think…”

A voice said, “You fellows okay there?”

They turned to the first row of cars to see a pair of local cops leaning against the side of a parked ambulance. Shirley O’Keefe and Dave Golub. Good kids, new to Pine Deep PD. The pair of them stood just outside the spill of light from the entrance. Golub, a big man, had his arms folded and his hat pulled low. O’Keefe wore no hat but her face was shadowed by her frizzy mane of red hair. The stark lighting made both of them look dark-eyed and pale.

“Hey Dave,” Crow said with a smile, “Shirley.”

Shirley said nothing, but she gave Crow a slow nod. She wore a quirky little knowing smile that seemed out of place on her freckled face. It made her look impish rater than elfin.

“How’s Val?” Golub asked.

“Well as can be expected.”

“Shame about Mark and his wife, though,” Golub said.

“Dave,” Weinstock asked, “any news on finding Boyd’s body yet?”

“No…but I’m sure it’ll turn up.”

“Ask Gus to call me first thing if it does.”

Golub gave him a smile and a nod. “Will do, Doc.”

(2)

Vic was out for hours, sprawled in a tangle of arms and legs, reeking of shit, a pool of brown urine going cold and stale under him. His nose and ears were no longer bleeding, but the dried blood caked his nostrils and streaked the side of his face. Every once in a while one of his fingers would twitch. That it was his trigger finger was not coincidental and spoke of the dreams that burned in his mind as he slept off the effects of Griswold’s rage.

Ruger was only out for a few minutes. He was wired differently now, his nerves and synapses firing on different fuel. When he came awake it was like the flick of a switch, with full awareness returning in a crystalline rush of clarity. He knew who he was, where he was, and why he had been smashed flat. He felt the pain was his due, and he wore the invisible stripes of the Man’s lash humbly, honored to be noticed enough even to have been struck down.

Ruger was on his back when he became aware and he lay there for a moment drinking in the room. He smelled Vic and that made him smile. He was allowed to smile at the pain of others, even at Vic’s pain. The house above was almost silent, but he could hear the clink of ice in a glass and smell the faint juniper tang of Lois’s gin. Even through the smell of Vic’s shit and piss, he could smell that, just as he could smell the woman who sat alone, drinking the day away. He put those thoughts away for later.

Ruger sat up, crossing his legs and folding them under him so that sitting moved into kneeling. He placed his palms on the floor and closed his dark eyes as he bowed his head to the cool concrete. In the posture of the supplicant he had never been in life, Karl Ruger bowed before the raw, boundless power that was the Man.

“Forgive,” he begged in a whisper.

He remained in that posture for hours. All the while the only thing that burned as intensely within him as his need for forgiveness was his aching, burning desire to feed. Night had fallen heavily over Pine Deep. Ruger could feel it, a silky wet darkness that was alive with predator and prey. His body was on fire to run into the shadows, to melt with them, seeking the human heat in the dark cold of October, but he would not move, would not even budge. Even when he heard Vic get up, cursing and groggy, weeping with pain and humiliation as he staggered to the cellar steps and climbed unsteadily up to get cleaned up—even then Ruger remained bowed in supplication as the nothingness screamed in his head.

Then, like the faintest breath of a cool breeze on scorched skin it came. Not a word, not even a whisper, nothing articulate or shaped. Just the softest, sweetest, most subtle of touches, mind to mind. Kind to kind. After the lash, a caress of forgiveness. And of consent.

Ruger’s fetid blood screamed for black joy.