Shawndirea, p.28
Shawndirea, page 28
“Not for you.”
“So I can leave the hospital?”
Marshall shrugged. “If that’s what you wish to do, sure.”
Deiko glanced around nervously. His eyes were timid like a frightened rabbit. His breathing increased. He shook his head and said, “No, I think I should wait a few more days. Okay?”
“Whatever you wish to do,” Marshall said in his deep voice.
“You won’t tell them?”
Marshall took his notepad, shook his head, and headed to the door. He walked down the hall and stopped at the nurse’s station and said, “I need the list of medications that you have Isaac Deiko on ASAP.”
The nurse looked up from her notes, unimpressed.
Marshall slammed his badge on the countertop, frowned, leaned over her and said, “That means now!”
His thunderous voice made the woman shake. She searched through all the clipboards on the desk until she found Deiko’s file. “One second, sir,” she said. “I’ll run off a copy for you.”
***
When Marshall returned to his car, he picked up the newspaper off the seat and read the headline: “Strange Occurrences at Cider Knoll Cave.” After talking to Deiko, he didn’t believe he had enough information to help him find Elias.
He grabbed his radio receiver and contacted his secretary. “Ms. Banks, any new information?”
“We do have something,” she replied.
“Well, do tell,” Marshall said impatiently.
“We tapped into a radio call from Sheriff Douglas to Deputy Higgins near the area where you are at.”
“What information did you get?”
“Sheriff Douglas called Higgins about a possible three homicide in a small mobile home at ten fourteen Maple Ridge Road in Cider Knoll. That’s approximately a quarter mile from the cave where the boy was last seen.”
“Thanks. Keep me posted if anything else comes up, Ms. Banks.”
“I will, Agent Jackson.”
Marshall drove from the mental hospital and headed to the rural area of Cider Knoll. So a boy was missing. His friend was too much in shock to tell authorities what had happened. But it occurred in the same cave where Deiko reported Elias had attacked him. Now three more people were dead nearby. He needed to get to the crime scene before local authorities contaminated possible evidence or they accidentally stumbled upon Elias. The officers had no idea how much jeopardy their lives were in should they encounter Elias.
***
Sheriff Douglas was leaning against the front of his patrol car when Deputy Higgins turned into the short driveway. Douglas was a stocky man about five foot seven. His burred silver hair didn’t cover his sunburned scalp. He crossed his arms and nodded at Higgins.
The old mobile home was tan, silver, and coated with rust.
Higgins parked his car and got out. “What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” Douglas said.
“How bad is it?”
“The worst thing I’ve ever seen.”
Sheriff Douglas pulled his gloves on and opened the trailer door. He stepped aside and allowed Higgins to go up the stairs first. He entered the small living room with drab green carpet, a green sofa, and a glass-topped coffee table. He stepped back when he saw the blood and the three bodies. Their bodies were positioned in odd forms, as if they were meant to represent symbols. Strange marks were carved in their skin, too.
A horrible odor permeated the air.
Higgins looked from the three bodies to Douglas. “How do you even begin to write up a crime scene like this?”
“It won’t follow proper protocol.”
“And what kind of sick person would do something like this?”
Douglas shook his head. “Hell, I don’t know. Cult? Devil worshippers? I’m open to suggestions.”
“I have none. Someone cut them up pretty badly. And those bloody sketches on the wall. What kind of language is that?”
“Nothing I’d know.”
Higgins covered his nose and mouth with his handkerchief. “That smell. Is it meth?”
Douglas nodded.
“So how do you want to write this up?” Higgins asked.
“I don’t.”
“What?”
“We write this report up as what it is, and we’ll have Feds in here thinking we’re too incompetent to work as police officers. It won’t make sense and might actually cost us our jobs.”
Higgins frowned. “Then what do we do?”
“We rig this place to burn and blame the meth lab in the back room as the reason the trailer burned to the ground. The bloody paintings on the wall, the bizarre murders, everything—goes up in smoke,” Douglas said with a devious smile.
“Sir, I really don’t think that’s a good idea. We need to know who is behind such a hideous crime, don’t we?”
Douglas nodded. “We do. We’ll keep looking, but we cannot let our community know that something this sick lurks in our midst. Think of how much panic that will cause. Hell, the old men that sit and talk at Harper’s Grocery have already sent most of the county into an uproar over Donnie disappearing. This area is already too superstitious for something of this nature and magnitude to hit their rumor mill. We need to put an end to this before it gets further out of hand.”
Higgins rested his hands on his hips and scanned the trailer. Two dead men and a woman lay in such a sick, twisted display that he was sickened at his stomach. From his viewpoint he couldn’t figure out how they had been killed. Two handguns, a knife, stacks of money and small bags of white powder were only a couple feet from their bodies. Whoever killed them wasn’t interested in money or drugs. Just wanted them dead. This wasn’t a typical murder, either. Far from it. Higgins felt certain they should have the FBI involved in this case.
“Before you got here,” Douglas said, “I drove out to the gas station and bought several gallons of gasoline. It’s in the trunk. Help me go get it and we’ll prevent the county from going into hysterics.”
“Sheriff,” Higgins said. “Don’t you think we should get CSU out here to gather clues to discover who’s behind this?”
Douglas turned and pushed Higgins against the trailer wall. He pressed his forearm against Higgins’ throat. “Do you want to keep your job?”
Higgins nodded. “Of course.”
“Then let’s dispose of what happened here. We can investigate what happened without getting our county folk constantly calling our office, talking to the media, and seeking to do their own investigations. You have no idea how crazy things will be if word of what happened here leaks out.”
Douglas released the pressure from Higgins’ throat, freed him, and slowly backed up. He allowed Higgins to walk to the door. Higgins rubbed his throat and took a deep breath.
Higgins pushed the screen door open and said, “Aren’t you a bit frightened by what happened here?”
“I’m scared shitless,” Douglas said. The veins in his throat and forehead were swollen. He wiped sweat from his brow. “We’re dealing with a maniac at best, but a crime scene this bad means we’re facing something much worse. CSU can’t make that any clearer.”
“That’s true, but . . .”
Sheriff Douglas frowned and then he pointed a firm finger at him. “Don’t say anything else. Let’s get the gasoline and torch the place.”
***
Marshall drove around a sharp curve in the narrow two-lane road. Where the road straightened, two sheriff patrol cars headed toward him. They passed at what seemed an incredibly odd high rate of speed for such a rural area. The patrol car lights were not on.
Once he found the small trailer at the edge of the road, he pulled his sedan into the drive. The edge of the driveway had grooves dug in the gravel where two different vehicles pulled out quickly. It didn’t require a lot of deductive reasoning to know that the cars were the patrol cars he had just passed. He wondered why they fled so quickly when the sheriff had called about a possible three homicides at this exact residence.
Marshall got out of his car and left the door open. He walked across the driveway and peered through the living room window. The Venetian blinds were down, but a small section was crumpled and didn’t prevent anyone from seeing in or out. He saw the bodies and the bloody ritualistic murder scene, which was something he expected to find. Why had they left without doing a more thorough investigation?
He stepped up the rickety trailer steps and pulled open the screen door. He almost grabbed the doorknob when he stopped. He smelled gasoline and propane. He peered through the small window on the door and noticed the gas-stove door was all the way open.
“Shit!” Marshall said, leaping from the steps and running for his car.
He was halfway across the drive when the trailer exploded into a giant ball of fire. The pressure of the explosion sent him into the air. He hit the gravel, rolled, and hurried behind the back of his car. He wiped dirt and grass from his suit jacket and watched the blazing fire through the windows of his car.
“Sons of bitches!” Marshall said, his jaws tightened.
He marched around the side of his car, got in, and slammed the door shut. He started the engine, backed up, and slung gravels as he exited the drive and headed down the county road. He glanced at the leather-bound book in the passenger seat, and sadly, he shook his head. Although the two officers needed to lose their jobs and be tried in court for destroying valuable crime scene evidence, doing so wouldn’t help his cause. He wanted to find Elias, but if he had made these ritual sacrifices and had the boy, Elias wouldn’t be back for another twenty years.
“Dammit!” Marshall said, slapping the steering wheel. He placed his right hand on the leather journal. “I was so damn close to stopping you, Elias.”
The next opportunity to destroy Elias and prevent the man from achieving immortality returned in twenty years. Wherever Elias hid in dormancy was a place Marshall might seek to find, but periodically, Marshall had hired several archaeologists to hunt for the man’s tomb. No one had found where he lay hidden.
The leather-bound journal had once belonged to Elias, which vividly explained all the wicked spells, rituals, and symbols to gain immortality but nothing in it detailed where he hid during each dormant twenty year period. Marshall wanted to find Elias and destroy him because Elias was his great-great grandfather, a voodoo Bokor, and a vicious murderer that had, in Marshall’s opinion, tarnished the Jackson name. In twenty years, Marshall knew he had to be ready.
So there was no reason for Marshall to stick around and hunt for Elias. Elias was done for the next twenty years, so Marshall didn’t need to make his presence known. At least not yet. However, he planned to have investigators remove Sheriff Douglas from office for destroying evidence and for not having enough backbone to do his job to protect his county.
Chapter Thirty-six
Roble and the others stopped the wagon and horses at an open field at the foot of Glacier Ridge. The air was much warmer. Sunlight not only brightened the horizon, it brightened their spirits with Crukas being the exception.
Roble had always been one to stand up for the underdog, to help those who were in need, but he also never backed down from a fight if the cause was worthy. Being in this realm, he felt that he was changing, becoming harder and less affable. But the rules were different and sometimes unclear, as he had seen with the three demon-men that had held Lehrling prisoner.
Crukas looked up, closed his eyes, and let the sunlight warm his face. He mouthed words without a sound. He raised his shackled hands toward the sky and smiled.
Roble pulled out the food crate from beneath the driver’s seat. When he opened the crate, he found dried meat, cheese, and stale bread loaves. Odlon and Lehrling took knives and cut off portions for themselves while Roble offered Crukas food.
“Why trouble yourself with me?” Crukas asked. “You’re simply wasting what food you and the others need since I am going to be hanged.”
“You’re not dead yet,” Roble replied.
“I’d rather starve than hang.”
Roble smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps you should have sought a different occupation.”
Crukas’ eyes narrowed.
“Don’t taunt him,” Shawndirea said.
“Does the faery harbor pity for me?” Crukas asked.
“Hardly,” she replied. “I just don’t like seeing caged animals picked on.”
Lehrling and Odlon laughed.
Crukas’ face reddened. He placed his hands on the iron bars and said, “Well, I see the stable master knew how to contain me. He even went to the trouble of neutralizing my magical abilities with the metal and engraved counter spells. Seems he knows quite a bit of magic himself.”
Roble handed a large chunk of meat, cheese, and bread to Crukas and said, “Eat it or toss it. I don’t care. At no time will I allow myself to let another suffer hunger.”
“But you’d see me hang?”
“For justice.”
“Justice?” Crukas said with a wide smile. “What world do you live in? You’re a bit deranged if you believe such a concept exists. At best, fate sets things into motion, and at times, people pay their dues, but justice? Justice seldom prevails. People simply remove whatever they deem a thorn in their sides. Hangings aren’t justice. They’re entertainment. Nothing more. Adults and children flock to the square to watch hangings.”
Roble shrugged. “Perhaps from your perspective it is entertainment. Not from mine. Especially when it pertains to you.”
“And what injustice have I bestowed upon you?” Crukas asked, taking a huge bite of food.
“You allowed many in Glacier Ridge to die when you could have prevented it.”
Crukas chewed the wad of food in his mouth and said, “The Plague-bringer would have struck us all down with disease and continued to the next town if we had attempted to stop him.”
“You don’t know that,” Roble said.
Shawndirea nodded. “He’s right.”
“You agree with him?” Roble asked.
“In that point he is correct,” she said. “Confrontation with the Plague-bringer is death.”
Odlon walked to the rear of the wagon. “No one has ever stopped the Plague-bringer. He’s a worse sight to behold than one’s own banshee spirit. Death follows him. Something else summons him.”
“So do you believe Riese is dead?” Roble asked.
“It’s hard to say,” Shawndirea replied. “Depends upon whether the Plague-bringer was finished and gone by the time Riese got back to Glacier Ridge.”
“If you know so much about him, why didn’t any of you say anything?” Roble asked.
Lehrling swallowed a bite of hard cheese and said, “Because he comes in many forms. No one knows for certain what form he may present. He was an old feeble looking man today. Might be a rich knight tomorrow, or a female bard singing songs for money. One never knows. Once he came as an elder priest and cursed the Temple of Bridgebarrow. Half the town was dead within a day. So no one can know what he looks like.”
“But Crukas knew,” Roble replied. “How is that?”
Crukas gave a firm nod and then a slight shrug. He said, “He wore a golden ring on his right hand. The stone is a skull-shaped emerald with inserted ruby eyes.”
Roble frowned. “And how does this ring indicate who he is?”
“To be truthful, I wasn’t certain it was he. However, I have heard the tale from another survivor when the Plague-bringer arrived in a village wearing such a ring. The man survived the plague but his body and mind are forever scarred.”
Lehrling looked at Roble and Odlon and said, “It’s best that we head southward. We’re out in the open and need to get to Ironwood as soon as possible.”
“Indeed,” Odlon said, nodding and then he glanced across the meadow. “We’re easy targets here.”
“More bandits and thieves?” Roble asked.
Shawndirea said, “We travel the path that leaves Glacier Ridge. Outside travelers don’t know what has occurred there. News spreads slowly. It may be weeks before thieves know not to venture here.”
“That’s true.” Lehrling smiled and said, “We take advantage of the sunlight. That gives us a good five hours to travel. It’s not midmorning yet.”
“What awaits us between here and Ironwood?” Roble asked.
Odlon mounted his horse and looked back at Roble. “Several small towns, trading posts, forests, and wilderness. Woodcrest is the first place we must pass through.”
“Friendly town?” Roble asked.
Lehrling shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. Depends upon what they lack in wares.”
“Any trading posts along the way?”
“On occasion you pass those. However, there are also small huts where people are disguised as traders. But they lure travellers in to rob them and take what they want,” Lehrling said. “I’m guessing you don’t travel much.”
“Not in this region,” Roble replied. “Sounds like folks here are more hostile than friendly.”
Shawndirea whispered. “Dangers are everywhere in Aetheaon. Never let down your guard.”
Roble nodded. “You keep saying that.”
“Only because it is true, and you don’t seem to take my warnings seriously.”
“I’ve yet to see anything I view as exceedingly dangerous.”
“Doesn’t mean you won’t encounter such.”
“You’re right. I should be more cautious, especially after nearly losing you and what the Plague-bringer probably did in Glacier Ridge.”
Roble saw the concern in her eyes, which vaguely hinted of her inner fears. He followed her gaze and looked beyond the grassy meadows to the woods that were shrouded within more shadows, more mists, and more mysteries.
Suddenly he took her warnings more seriously. The abrupt pang in his stomach made him realize that he had been more nervous all along their journey. Every odd situation from the moment he was almost dropped into the Styx River until the intense sight of encountering all the ghosts of Glacier Ridge had slowly built more anxiety inside him. Stomach acid was burning a huge ulcer.
