Watcher of the Dark: A Jeremiah Hunt Supernatual Thriller (The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) (8 page)

“Ummmm,” she said. “Tasty.”

Behind me, Rivera laughed.

I was so going to kill all of them as soon as I got the chance.

With the spectre defeated, I expected the others to resume their search, but apparently there was no longer any need. Rivera and Grady moved directly to the sarcophagus from which the spectre had erupted, indicating by default that it had been the one they’d been searching for all along.

Grady took a pair of pry bars out of the canvas duffel he was carrying and handed one to Rivera. They positioned themselves along the same side of the sarcophagus, one at either end, and then wedged the tips of their pry bars into the crack where the lid met the side of the stone coffin. Each squatted down to get one shoulder under his pry bar, and then on the count of three they stood up straight, forcing the bars up with them as they went. There was a sharp crack as the seal holding the lid in place was broken and the heavy stone slab slid a few inches in the opposite direction. They repositioned the pry bars, this time using the edge of the sarcophagus as a brace, and repeated the process. The lid slid over to the edge with a grinding sound and tipped over the other side, slamming to the ground with a loud crash.

Wordlessly, the rest of us gathered round and looked inside.

The physical world appeared faint through the lens of my ghostsight, but it was enough. The body in the coffin had clearly been there for a long time. The desiccated flesh was stretched tight over bones clad in linen burial robes of a type I’d never seen before. If it hadn’t been for the wide shoulders and substantial pelvic area of the skeleton, I might have assumed it was a woman buried there, given the robes.

The corpse’s hands were crossed over the hilt of a sword that rested on its chest, the blade extending downward toward his feet. I was certainly no expert on edged weaponry, but it looked like an English long sword to me, given the length and narrowness of the blade. There was a word inscribed on the blade, but there was too much dust for me to read it.

“Get rid of that,” Rivera said and Grady reached in, grabbed the front of the corpse’s burial garment, and heaved the corpse out of the coffin, dumping it unceremoniously to the side. The sword popped free and clattered across the stone floor.

I bent to retrieve it, but caught the look Rivera flashed in my direction and decided perhaps that wouldn’t be the best idea after all. I stood up slowly, holding my hands up to show I hadn’t meant to try any funny business.

Perhaps recognizing that I needed something to do, Rivera said, “You’re on overwatch. Make sure nothing else, human or otherwise, tries to sneak up on us while we’re doing this.”

“Doing what?” I wanted to ask, but I let it go, knowing they weren’t going to give me an answer. I’d learn more just by watching.

Ilyana reached into the coffin and picked something up. I didn’t realize what it was until she started tossing it back and forth from one hand to the other. The eye sockets seemed to stare at me in silent accusation as the skull bounced from palm to palm.

I looked up, caught her watching me with that sly little gaze of hers, and in my mind’s eye I watched again as her jaw came unhinged and she swallowed a rampaging spectre like it was a piece of Halloween candy. I shuddered and turned away, doing my best to ignore Ilyana’s little bark of amusement as I did so.

My ghostsight let me see that we were truly alone for the first time since we’d arrived; the horde of ghosts that had been watching us appeared to have fled. For once I wasn’t afraid to keep my ghostsight activated; anything that came looking for trouble would find Ilyana waiting instead. Given what she’d done with the spectre, I didn’t think she’d have much difficulty handling anything short of a major demon or two.

Even then, I might have bet on her.

The ghosts that had been watching us prior to the spectre’s arrival had vanished and there didn’t seem to be anything else down here with us, supernatural or otherwise, leaving me with little to watch on “overwatch” other than my companions.

After removing the body and dumping it to one side, Rivera and Grady began methodically going over the interior of the stone coffin, inch by inch. They ran their hands across the stone, knocked on it with their knuckles, tried to push and pull in various place, all without success. Whatever they were looking for, it just didn’t seem to be there.

At last, frustrated, Rivera called Perkins over.

“Where is it?” the mage asked, his accent more prominent when he was irritated.

Perkins smiled and held out a hand, palm up.

“Twenty bucks, wasn’t it?”

Rivera didn’t say anything, and after a moment or two of continued silence, Perkins’s smile slowly faded and his hand fell back to his side. Without even bothering to look in that direction, Perkins pointed over his shoulder at the body dumped so carelessly on the floor just a few moments before.

“The sword.”

Grady frowned. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Perkins asked.

“Yes,” Grady snapped back, as he walked over to the remains of the coffin’s former tenant. “You always look like you’re kidding, which is why I’m always calling you a big joke. See how that works?”

Perkins gave him the finger but didn’t say anything.

One thing was for sure: there certainly wasn’t any love lost between any of my companions. I filed that little fact away with the others I’d picked up over the last day or two. Who knew when something I’d picked up along the way might come in handy?

Grady kicked the bones out of the way, picked up the sword, and carried it back to the others. Perkins reached for it, but Rivera took it from Grady instead.

With Ilyana and me looking on from a distance, Rivera carefully examined the sword. His attention quickly settled on the hilt of the weapon and, more specifically, on the crossguard itself.

As he focused on it, so did I. When seen through the unique filter of my ghostsight, it was less a piece of metal and more a twisting, turning length of living darkness.

I was utterly unsurprised to see the vulpine smile that crossed his face when he gave the crossguard a quick yank and it came free in his hands.

11

The next couple of days passed without incident. Fuentes was so completely confident that his threat against my friends would keep me docile and obedient that I was free to come and go at will as long as I left word where I would be and a cell number at which I could be reached. When I admitted to Fuentes that I didn’t even own a cell phone, he had one of his men get me one.

The thing was, I didn’t really
have
anywhere to go. The few items I considered my possessions had been picked up from the motel and delivered to Fuentes’s compound while we had been at the church. I returned from our “mission” to find my things in a brown paper bag in the middle of my bed. A note inside the bag informed me that the bill at the motel had been settled.

With the motel bill taken care of, I lost just about my only excuse to be out anyway. Living as a fugitive with the FBI on my trail made me naturally wary of being seen in public. The average person on the street might go unnoticed, but a blind guy with a cane always draws someone’s attention. The quirks of my condition make it easier for me to slip out at night, but even that was problematic; people tend to remember the guy wearing sunglasses after dark.

In the end, though, the thing that kept me hanging around with little to do was the simple fact that Fuentes was right. I wouldn’t do anything to put my friends in danger. I might be a total jerk to most people—I’m well aware that I’m generally what those with sunnier dispositions like to call abrasive—but I will literally go to hell and back to help those who have earned my trust and compassion. Fuentes’s threat against my friends might not be real, but I couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t. Which, when considered dispassionately, was the real beauty of the trap Fuentes had sprung. My conscience would keep me in line far more effectively than anything Fuentes’s people, including Rivera, might do.

I spent the time hanging around the estate, getting to know some of the staff and trying to learn more about Grady, Perkins, and the others. The latter was difficult; while the staff was more than happy to talk about themselves, they were far more reluctant to talk about those they considered to be “Señor Fuentes’s friends,” and they clammed up tight if I pressed them for more information. I knew I should be thankful—as one of those so-called “friends” myself, their code of silence kept my identity and location secret from anyone who might come asking after me as well—but it was frustrating just the same. I had pretty much given up hope of discovering anything when an unexpected source all but dropped into my lap.

I was in the basement pool room, shooting a game of nine-ball by myself in the dark, when the door opened suddenly behind me, spilling light into the room and chasing my sight away with it.

I stood up from over the table and turned toward the door. I could sense someone there, even if I couldn’t see them. “Hello?”

“I’m sorry,” said a voice that I recognized as Perkins’s. “I didn’t know anyone was in here.”

I shrugged. “No problem.”

I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he took in the pool cue in my hand and the balls scattered around the tabletop.

“You’re … playing pool?” he finally asked.

“No, tiddly-winks,” I almost said, but managed to bite my tongue just before the words left my mouth. Compared to the way the rest of those in our little group treated me, Perkins was being downright friendly. If I was going to survive this mess, I needed a lot more information about what was going on than I had right now and the only way I was going to get it was to get someone to talk to me. Perkins seemed genuinely curious about my condition and it made sense to play along, to see what he might give in return. So instead of giving him grief with a smart-ass remark and driving him off, I answered with a simple yes instead.

“But … I thought you were blind.”

“I am.”

“So how…”

I held a finger over my lips and whispered, “Shhh. Ancient Chinese secret.”

The silence that followed told me he’d missed the joke entirely.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Perkins, lighten up. It’s no secret, I was just kidding. Come in and sit down. I’ll tell you if you really want to know.”

I didn’t think he was going to do it, but his curiosity must have gotten the better of him for he hesitated only a moment before doing as I’d asked. He closed the door behind him, and my eyesight returned at the same moment the darkness did.

I glanced at the table, called out a combo, and sank the shot without much effort. College had been expensive, and I’d hustled a lot of pool in my younger days to help pay the bills. Once learned, some skills just don’t ever leave you. I could throw a mean game of darts too.

My prowess at nine-ball was lost on my audience though; I might be able to see in the dark, but that didn’t mean he could. With a sigh I put the cue down on the table and said, “Light switch is there by your left hand…”

It took a moment of fumbling for him to find it and by then I had my sunglasses on, covering my eyes. The glasses weren’t strong enough to preserve my vision once the lights came back on, but they weren’t for me anyway. I’d learned long ago that the milky whiteness of my eyeballs and the scar tissue that surrounded them made a lot of people uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to chase Perkins away before we had the chance to talk.

I pulled a stool out from under the bar that ran the length of the wall next to the pool table and settled onto it. A moment later I heard him do the same.

I knew I was going to have to give some in order to get some, so I figured it was time to lay some cards on the table and see what happened.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but once upon a time I was a professor at Harvard University…”

I gave him the abbreviated version, hitting only the highlights and ignoring the long, deep valleys between. My daughter’s disappearance. The botched police investigation that followed. My own, increasingly desperate, attempts to figure out what had happened to Elizabeth, followed by my long fall from grace. The loss of my job. The loss of my wife. And finally that fateful meeting with the Preacher in the park.

“The ritual was supposed to let me see the unseen, which, from my perspective, meant my missing daughter, but apparently I didn’t read the fine print well enough,” I said with a bitter little laugh. Even after all this time, I was still angry at myself for not thinking through the bargain that had been placed in front of me. I’d read
Faust
; I knew a devil’s deal when I saw one. And yet when the devil in question, the Preacher, had offered another deal in New Orleans, I’d jumped at that one too.

Apparently I’m not as smart as I think I am.

“The ritual stole my normal sight and replaced it with the ability to see the true face of things, from the ghosts that drift among us to the darker, hungrier things that move in the shadows. And just to be certain that I wouldn’t miss out on any of the horrors lurking out there, it gave me the ability to see in the dark as clearly as most people see in the light.”

Perkins hadn’t said a word since I’d started my little soliloquy, and since I couldn’t see the expression on his face, I had no idea what he was thinking. Still, I’d come this far and there was little to be gained by stopping now.

“So how’d you get mixed up in all this?” I asked. I thought it was a fairly innocuous question, more of an icebreaker kind of thing than anything else, but I felt his tension level shoot up just the same.

“What do you mean ‘all this’?” he asked.

I knew I wouldn’t get anywhere by playing coy, so I just decided to lay it out there. “You know what I mean,” I told him. “All this—Fuentes and Rivera and what’s-her-name, you know, Demon Lady?”

I thought I heard him choke on that last one, but pretended not to notice as I continued.

“I’m sorry, but you don’t strike me as a hard-liner like any of the others. Even Grady is in a class above you when it comes to old-fashioned grit and meanness. He fits in with the rest of them; you don’t. So what’s your story? How’d you end up here? With them?”