Beloved Evangeline (27 page)

Life was a blur. Worried that every time I stepped into the building would be my last, I had stopped paying attention to the weather outside, and failed to notice the seasons were passing me by. One afternoon a guy named Tim stopped me in the hallway. He was laughing. “What are you, cold or something?”

It took me a moment to process, but eventually I found myself wearing a black turtleneck sweater and gray woolen trousers. I’m guessing it was 95 degrees outside. I hadn’t even realized it was already late June.

Summer had arrived. Daily thunder and lightning storms would soon be bearing down, the best time of the year. How could I have missed the passing of the seasons? I seemed to have skipped right through the spring, completely missing the azaleas and Carolina jasmine.

But on some level my manner of dress seemed to make sense. Lately I had found sunlight difficult to withstand. I often read outdoors or just sit on my patio to soak up some sun, but recently the glare and heat had become intolerable.

I spent one entire weekend indoors, doing nothing but watching an
Avengers
marathon on BBC America. Emma Peel was my first real style inspiration when I was a teenager, and to this day, I continue to be completely mesmerized by her.

Though I was more anxious and distracted than ever, I somehow managed to keep up with my responsibilities. Much of the time I wasn’t sure how I was able to do so. I had to suspend all logic just to get through each day. The quest would soon be drawing to a close, and... then what? My life would just resume its pathetic pre-quest status. July, August, and September blurred past. October was upon me again before I even knew it. It felt as though my life may soon blur by me just the same as the seasons had.

Lunches with Nicky, Lyle, and Tina were just about my only pleasant distraction from this line of reasoning. And then, slowly, gradually, even through my fog-addled brain, something miraculous happened. A trickling of people began to gather with us at lunchtime. Though just a handful at first, within a few weeks no less than ten people congregated together to dine with us each day. Many of them social misfits, all of them lonely in some way or other; it was truly beautiful. The gathering of so many people caused my frozen soul to thaw just a little. And, just when I thought there were no other oddballs left, Natasha Tanner, a wicked-pretty blond, walked straight up to me while I was in line for my weekly lunch splurge of creamy tomato basil soup and warm molasses bread.

“
Hey, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I‘ve been wanting to talk to you about something.”

“
Oh?” I nodded encouragingly, thinking this was about work.

“
Yeah. I know a lot of people think I’m arrogant or something, but I’m just really… shy. It takes a lot of effort for me to just walk up and talk to someone. It’s hard for me, you know?”

I smiled. “We definitely have
that
in common.” She was so beautiful that I was literally a troll by comparison. I self-consciously smoothed down my perpetually messy tresses—that today, of course, were sticking out at even more severe angles than usual—a slight scowl on my face. Hers were so perfectly coifed; they glistened like silk.

“
That’s not everything,” she began sadly. “I wanted to talk to you about… Steve.”

My brow furrowed quizzically.

“
He invited me over for dinner last year. I don’t get asked out on a lot of dates, so…”

My expression must have shown the surprise that I felt.

“
No, really…” She went on to explain her own encounter with the Steve, the details of which I’ve sworn to take to the grave.

I sighed, unsure how to make her feel better. I pushed up my sleeve and showed her the now permanent discoloration on my forearm from my own night with Steve.

Natasha threw her arms around me, crying.

Crying makes me squeamish, and we were already attracting more undue attention than I found comfortable. I couldn’t manage to make myself appear normal and un-awkward. Patting her shoulder for want of anything better, I turned to Nicky and Lyle with pleading in my eyes. Although they had been casually stealing glances in our direction during the entire conversation, they only shrugged, misunderstanding my silent call for help.

She was really not going to stop crying any time soon, and I began worrying that many of my more vocal detractors among the onlookers thought I’d actually done something to make her unhappy. Taking matters into my own hands, I motioned to my friends with my I-don’t-know-what-to-do-now face. Finally, Nicky understood the cue as I hoped she would, and called out, “Do you want to come have lunch with us? We’ve created our own little haven for misfits—no judgment.”

Natasha looked up, momentarily unsure, glancing between me and them.

“
We’re standing up for the nonconformists,” Lyle added, “Evangeline’s gonna kick anyone’s ass who messes with us.”

I shook my head in frustration. “Not really.”

She laughed and sat down across from him, and blissfully, there was no more crying.

A different type of waterworks persisted, however. Lyle didn’t stop drooling through the entire lunch hour.

22.

I managed to invite Nicky for coffee with me on several occasions, and our relationship continued to improve. We began a regular Saturday morning hike and coffee expedition, just like we used to with Simon and Gavin, but I tried not to think too hard about either of them. Lyle even tagged along with us a few times—watching him learning to hike was worth every moment. Only a true friend would attempt something he’d never done—and was truly terrible at—just to spend time with us.

One morning while Nicky and I were enjoying our coffee, Lyle rushed toward us in a whirlwind of excitement.

“
I found the common thread!” he shouted as several people turned to us in annoyance at his commotion.

Nicky and I motioned simultaneously for him to sit down.

“
These are newspaper clippings of all of the murders. The cause of death is never the same... to make it appear that there’s no pattern, but clearly, there is. The pattern is that there’s
no pattern
.

“
Look, one woman’s mangled in an engine turbine, another torn apart by alligators, and yet another was somehow decapitated in a freakish accident with manufacturing equipment, and then there are several that seem to have no evident cause of death. Nothing is ever this random. There’s now been at least 15 of them in a 50-mile radius. It’s statistically impossible for all of these freakish, deadly coincidences to be occurring at the same time.”

I examined the clippings, my attention catching on a fact reflecting at least three of the women showed evidence of sexual trauma. Most of the other bodies were too badly decomposed or mangled to make any determination.

I couldn’t look at the pictures something about them—besides the obvious—made my blood run cold.

“
I think you might really be onto something, Lyle.”

Lyle rolled his eyes. “I’ve been wrong exactly three times in my entire life, Evangeline. Give me a little credit, please.”

I had a lot to think about on my way home that evening. Not the least of which involved Bruce Vaughn. I’d successfully avoided him for the past several weeks, for which I was very grateful, but without our little feud, my life just seemed all the more lacking. I came home to no commotion outside most nights, and I found myself oddly longing for those fights. I curled up on the couch with my tea and music and lounging pants, but without having to work for it, I found I didn’t really crave the relaxation the way I had before. I’d spent several weeks now coming and going as I pleased, leaving my garbage cans out for several days after trash day, neglecting my lawn, and parking my car out on the street, all without intervention of any kind.

Tonight I just felt... restless. The quest that had started out so promising was now feeling more and more disappointing.

I rummaged in my closet and pulled out the chest I’d reclaimed from the swamp. I examined it carefully, studying the intricate carving and wondering what kind of wood this could possibly be to have held up so well, but still nothing came of it. I wondered if I’d been too late, and someone else had just gotten there first.

I hadn’t watched television in forever, but it seemed like as good a distraction as any to help turn my mind off. I shuffled to the living room and plopped myself on the couch, flipping through the channels before settling on CNN. I frowned at the commercial that was on, a cereal company telling us by eating their cereal we can be thinner because research suggest people who eat whole grain foods have lower body fat ratios.

This is a clear example of irresponsible research. Not that in this case the cereal will do anyone any harm, but perhaps, people who go to the trouble of seeking out whole grain foods are just healthier in general. Clearly there are unaccounted for variables, the foremost being
exercise
and a person’s overall diet. To someone who guzzles two-liters of mountain dew and snacks on half-pound cheeseburgers and Twinkies, adding this particular cereal to the mix will do nothing to diminish their love-handles. I wanted the names of the researchers who so carelessly drew causal relationships from this data—the most dangerous aspect of any research. They should have to provide the numbers along with such claims, just like nutritional labels on food, so the rest of us can check these things for ourselves.

When CNN resumed it was one of their fluff pieces, something about a miraculous way to be debt free by saving just $10 a month, so I found myself channel surfing. I clicked off the power as soon as I saw the
Ghost Chasers
marathon.

Maybe a book instead. I picked up the last book I bought, a crime novel. After only a few pages in, I deduced it was about a female detective with complicated abandonment issues, the source of which could be traced back to her father. She was gun shy with men, so she slept around a lot, but her true love was her partner, who, to the surprise of no one, was already married to someone else. Frustrated with the direction the book was headed, I tossed it in the vicinity of the sofa.

But it made me think of another cliché plaguing detective novels—clues. Every killer in those books leaves some kind of clues behind, clues to their identity. They want credit for what they’ve done in most cases, in others they’re just careless. It occurred to me that the Midnight Murderer was different for this reason.
No
clues had been left behind. He did not want to be caught. He did not want notoriety. Whatever he did want—whatever he took from the victims—that was the key to the mystery.

I found myself with the TV on again, searching for something real, something a little less trite, but settled on a news channel instead. I perked up when I saw it was Fareed Zakaria. I was engrossed in the problems in the Middle East before a different type of story came on. The camera man panned to an elderly woman who was sitting in the desert with her back turned to the camera.

She was perched atop a large sand dune and appeared to be busying herself with some type of project. Such an occurrence seemed out of the norm for typical news fare, but I was strangely engaged. What was this woman doing? Did she just not see or hear the army of videographers who must be standing not far behind her? The camera angle changed abruptly to a view from above, rather than behind. To my horror, all of my remaining friends lay outstretched before her, their bodies sloping bizarrely on the downturn of the dune. The woman was still busying herself with something, but from this far off I couldn’t tell what. The camera zoomed downward slowly, until the object of her labor became horrifically clear: she was pinching the flesh off of their bones and... eating it.

She ripped apart the flesh as easily as if it were cotton candy—no pulling, no straining, no tearing. She seemed not to notice the presence of anyone else, until the cameraman pulled an extreme close up. With the camera zoomed in on her, she turned to face it. She wasn’t a woman at all. Black eyes gazed up from an exaggerated, forehead. The creature opened its mouth, revealing a mouth full of jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

I awoke to the sound of a loud piercing noise, my hand clutched to my chest.

Damn it.
My dreams were coming more rapidly and with greater intensity than they had in years. This particular dream had haunted me for the majority of my youth, only, instead of a desert in the Middle East, my friends at the time had been in the old 19
^th
Century Cemetery where we had played so often.

The
cemetery
. I fell off the couch with a
thud
before scrambling off to my room to retrieve the chest. To my great delight, I found the carvings were exactly as I had expected. I had associated the carvings with something evil because I had seen those carving so many times in my dark dreams. Those same carvings were on several of the crypts in that old cemetery. I jumped into my closet and began getting dressed.

Nicky, Jonathan, and I spent a tremendous amount of time exploring that cemetery. One or two nights, Nicky and I actually spent the night there, not seeing a thing. Of course, I spent many more nights there alone.

23.

Finally within my reach were the answers I’d so desperately sought. Of course, the price for that knowledge was that I had to venture to an ancient graveyard at midnight. The horrifying truth that something
unnatural
not only existed, but had recently tried to do me harm, was still fresh in my mind. This time, there would be no one else around to help if I got into trouble—I had made sure of that.

Unperturbed by this, I scrambled through the darkened graveyard, easily finding the carvings on the crypt of Lidora Rathburn. I examined the chest closely, holding it up to the moonlight for examination. The carvings on both the side of the mausoleum and the chest seemed to match together perfectly—not just carvings, a
key
. I held the chest up to the side of the crypt, fitting the pieces together, until I heard a small click. A compartment had opened on the inside of the lid, and a large silver cross fell from it. Engraved on the back of the cross was the name Wadsworth. I immediately set out to find his grave.

I found the Wadsworth mausoleum easily. I was looking around for something to do with it when someone cleared his throat behind me.

“
Ahem,” he said again.

I turned to see a very pale man dressed in a maroon velvet cape and dark trousers.

“
Good evening, miss. I am Edgar Vicente Wadsworth, son of Josiah Edgardo Wadsorth, IV, direct descendants of the houses of nobles in Britain. Am I to understand that you are the young lady to whom my family cross has been bestowed?”

“
This is yours?” I asked, handing over the cross.

“
Splendid,” said he, “Then I am instructed to give you that which you desire, but I daresay you should refrain from using it in my presence,” he dusted off his cape pompously with a white silken handkerchief. “God save and keep you from yourself and these evil endeavors,” he continued, one eyebrow raised as he directed me toward a crystal vile containing a glowing blue liquid in the corner of his crypt.

“
You are hereby forewarned: no one, be it nobleman or commoner, has consumed this liquid and kept his breath moving through him for more than a few moments. All have perished, swiftly and painfully—as will you.” He expounded with absolutely no emotion. “Now what you need to do is change into some proper clothes, young lady. You remind me of the time I was in lower Charleston, when the carriage broke down and I was forced to walk a quarter mile in the company of vagabonds…” the story continued, but my attention had already begun to drift away as I held up the glowing blue vile in my hand.

The liquid inside was a glowing, fluorescent blue. Drinking this would surely be the most insanely ludicrous thing I had ever done. Surely nothing fluorescent can be good for you. But the compulsion in my heart was leading me onward, and there was really no decision left to make. And what’s the worst that could happen? My life is already in ruins, and maybe, even if I didn’t come back…
No
, I mustn’t even think about that.

Maybe I should at least ask what the clearly undead Mr. Wadsworth was doing with this potion before I just go ahead and drink it? Funny how, come to think of it, my lifelong search for the supernatural was clearly over. I’m standing in a crypt next what can only be a ghost, and the thought never even occurred to me to take so much as a picture. My recent experiences seem to have at least cured me of that. I suppose I had always imagined that, if spirits or ghosts did exist, they would be benevolent entities, lost souls who only wanted justice or lingered to watch over or protect the still living. Not dangerous, as I experienced at the house, or snobbish, as was the case here. Not even the undead can always live up to the hype.

Mr. Wadsworth, who was clearly enjoying the sound of his own voice, continued to prattle on, “I say, do care to hear the story of how I died or
not
?” His voice had gone quite nasally with annoyance.

“
I cannot
wait
to hear that story, but first, could you tell me how you came to have this?” I asked, holding up the vile.

“
It’s not nearly as interesting a tale, but
yes
, I shall acquiesce at the behest of a Celtic lady, whatever her lowly station may be. A man brought the vile to me some years ago. He said I was to give it to none save whoever brought me my family’s long lost cross. My great-grandfather gave his life taming your wild frontiers, and that cross was the one trophy he claimed for his own.”

He was clearly prepared to continue so I interrupted, “The man, did you know his name?”

“
The name escapes me, though I believe it was a German surname.”

“
Von Olnheisen?”

“
Yes,
yes
, that could’ve been it,” he replied dismissively. “
Now
, on to the titillating tale of my earthly demise,” said he, clapping his hands and gleefully rubbing them together. “I had been following this rascal, this weaselly young fellow who had for some time been stalking me. I could not sit back and allow myself to become the target of whatever nefarious scheme he was so obviously plotting, so I decided to turn the tables on him! I followed the villain to several seedy little drinking establishments and houses of ill repute. He seemed to be collecting monies from his fellow ne’er-do-wells…”

It’s
no wonder someone did him in,
I thought severely. I slipped behind the side of the crypt to escape the tedium.

Once alone again, without no forethought, I turned my head, lifting the vile to my lips discreetly to avoid being seen, when suddenly—it slipped through my fingers. I dropped the vile momentarily, fumbling and grappling with it in an effort to keep it from shattering. Fortunately I succeeded before it could hit the ground, but unfortunately, not before a portion of the poison had been spilt. Mr. Wadsworth was still talking, this time about the excess population of beggars he believed should be neatly disposed of, when I picked up the vile quickly and downed its remaining contents before anyone discovered that the vile was now less than full.