Evil Dark (8 page)

  I heard the castors protest as she quickly pushed her chair back, her eyes huge.

  "Y-yes, of course. I didn't mean to – excuse me, please."

  Then she was heading for the oak door behind her at a pace that was not quite a run. She knocked twice and didn't wait for a reply from inside before entering Doc Watson's inner sanctum.

  "Where were you when I was in eighth grade?" I murmured to Karl. He looked at me, but before I could explain, the receptionist was back.

  To me she said, "Doctor Watson will see you now." She didn't look at Karl at all.

  Terence K Watson was a thin guy who wore his thick black hair brushed straight back. Combine that with the goatee and his fondness for black clothing and you've got a look that Rachel Proctor once described to me as Faustian. What she meant was the doc would have looked good as Mephistopheles in a staging of Marlowe's play. Faust himself was no fashion plate, by most accounts.

  Rachel is one of the smartest people I know, but she's wrong on that one. I've seen the real Mephistopheles, and he looks like nothing human – unless he wants to. Besides, Doc Watson isn't into stealing souls. He's in the business of saving them, or trying to.

  The doc and I go way back, and he's met Karl before, so no introductions were called for. But as we sat down, he looked at Karl and said, "I heard you'd been turned a while back, Karl, and now I see that the stories are true. If you don't mind my asking, how are you doing? It's quite an adjustment you've had to make."

  Karl thought for a few seconds before answering. Maybe he was deciding how much to say. "It's an adjustment, like you said, Doc. But it's not too bad most days – most nights, I mean. And when it is, I just remind myself that being undead beats the alternative."

  "Does it? You're sure?"

  "Yeah, pretty sure."

  Doc nodded. "Good."

  "You must treat a few vampires yourself, Doc," I said. "Since you've started offering night appointments, and all."

  He looked at me and his expression grew, if possible, more serious. "The confidentiality of my relationship with patients is absolute, Stan. It has to be – even to the point of declining to answer that question."

  "I didn't mean anything by it, Doc. Just making conversation."

  He let his long face relax in a sort of smile. "I know, Stan. But it's not the kind of small talk that I can join in."

  "We're here to ask you about somebody who isn't one of your patients," Karl said. "At least, I hope he's not."

  "Even if he is, Karl, you'll never know it." He spread his hands for a second and sat back. "Ask away. I'll tell you what I can."

  Karl and I took turns telling him about the witch burnings. When we were finished, Doc was silent for several seconds.

  "I suppose telling you that the person responsible for these crimes seems to hate witches would be an exercise in the obvious," he said.

  "Yeah, kind of," I told him.

  "Of course, that assumes the victims are chosen randomly, within the witch community," Doc said. "There's always the possibility that his grudge was against these two women in particular."

  "We've got people working that angle," Karl said. "They're looking for a common factor – clients, boyfriends, relatives, all that."

  "If they find something, it'll make my life a lot easier," I said. "But since God seems to be part of an ongoing conspiracy to make my life difficult, let's assume for now that it's a serial killer who's obsessed with witches."

  "All right, then." Doc was sitting in an expensive-looking leather swivel chair. He tilted it back as far as it would go and closed his eyes. He sat like that without speaking for fifteen seconds or so. "He's choosing witches because they symbolize something for him – something that he wants to kill, or wishes he had, but can't. It's possible that an actual witch did him dirty sometime in the past, of course. However, when the victims are female, we tend to believe that they are serving as stand-ins for a woman in the killer's past, often the mother, or a mother-figure." Doc opened his eyes and shrugged. "Trite, but true."

  "So, you figure the guy's mother was a witch?" Karl asked.

  "Maybe," Doc said, "but it's rarely that simple. By the way, I've been using 'he' because it's easier, but I don't mean to prejudice your investigation by implying that the killer is necessarily male. However, the odds favor it, since the vast majority of serial killers who have been identified were male." Doc thought for a moment. "That doesn't apply to supernaturals, of course."

  "How come?" Karl asked.

  "Because the distinctions aren't as clear. For instance, do you consider a vampire who kills people a serial killer, or just hungry?"

  "I know what I'd consider him," I said.

  "No doubt," Doc said. "But then, you've got some issues of your own with vampires, don't–" He stopped himself, then looked at Karl. "Sorry," he said. "I meant no offense."

  "None taken, Doc," Karl said. "When you're right, you're right – Stan
does
have issues with vampires. Although he hasn't put garlic in my locker for a couple of months now."

  Doc stared at Karl for a couple of seconds, as if he wasn't sure whether he was being kidded. Karl was telling the truth – I do have problems with vamps, but maybe not as many as I used to.

  Doc turned to me. "There's one other possibility that might apply to your killer's motivation," he said. "It could be political."

  It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. "You mean human supremacists," I said.

  Doc nodded slowly. "Exactly. I know we have some locally. Every once in a while, the
Times-Tribune
publishes one of their hate letters. And I think I remember reading something about a demonstration once."

  Karl looked at me. "Pettigrew's bunch," he said.

  "Could be a conversation with the HSR is in order," I told him.

  Doc Watson tilted his head a little. "HSR?"

  "The Homo Sapiens Resistance," I said. "That's the name of the national organization – although from the members I've met, calling themselves
Homo sapiens
may be a bit of a stretch. Cro-Magnons, maybe."

  "Was there any kind of signature left at the crime scenes?" Doc asked me. "Anything that might make a statement about who was responsible, or why?"

  "Nothing," I said. "And we went over those crime scenes pretty damn thoroughly. So did Forensics."

  "And I haven't seen any statements released to the media, either," Doc said.

  "What's your point, Doc?" Karl asked.

  "Terrorism – and that's what we're talking about here – is only effective if the people doing it let the world know
why
they did it. Lenin said, 'The purpose of terror is to terrify', and it's hard to terrify people if they don't know who you are."

  "Could be that the local haters haven't read Lenin – or much of anything else," I said. "We'll have a word with them, anyway. Shake their tree a little, and see if anything falls off."

  "Besides," Karl said, "it's fun."

  We'd learned what we came for, and it was time for us to go. As I stood up, I said to Doc, "I guess you've come into some money recently."

  He looked at me with narrowed eyes. "It's true – my dad died a couple of months ago and left me a good-sized share of his estate. How did you know, Stan?"

  One of the guys at the station house had told me about Doc's good fortune, but I decided to play Sherlock Holmes.

  "That painting on your wall over there is new, and it looks like an original oil, not a copy," I said. "I haven't seen that sports coat on you before, but it's made of pricey fabric and looks tailored. Instead of getting your hair cut, like usual, you've had it styled. I can only see the edge of the watch under the sleeve, but it looks like an Omega, and the cheapest one they make goes for about fifteen hundred bucks." I gave him a casual-looking shrug. "You're too smart to live beyond your means, so I figured you'd had a windfall of some kind."

  "I thought cops only did stuff like that in the movies," Doc said. "That's fucking amazing, Stan."

  Since I knew that Doc had inherited some big bucks, it wasn't hard to work backwards and look for signs of affluence. But I had no intention of telling him that.

  I followed Karl to the door, then turned back. Looking at Doc with what I hoped was a straight face, I said, "It was quite elementary, my dear Watson."

 

Doc's building isn't in a high crime area, and I wasn't worried about the police-issue Buick we drove getting stolen or stripped. As we came outside and turned the corner, I saw that I'd been right – the car was still there, and wasn't missing anything. But something had been added, in the form of the ghoul who was leaning against the driver's door.

  I can recognize a ghoul on sight. I don't even need to smell his breath, although you can usually do that from several feet away, and it isn't pleasant. Their diet has what you might call a distinctive odor. They're all short, too. Not dwarf short, but I've never seen a ghoul who topped five foot six, and this one was no exception. He had a goatee like Doc Watson's, but where Doc looked suave and a little sinister, this flesh-muncher came across like a beatnik that had wandered through a 1950s time warp. I half expected to hear him call me "Daddy-o."

  Karl and I braced him from about six feet away, where his breath wasn't too bad. "You leaning on our ride because you got no place else to be?" I asked him. "Or do you want something?"

  He took his time straightening up, as if it was his own idea and not a strong suggestion from a representative of law and order. He stared at Karl for a couple of seconds, then turned to me.

  "You'd be Sergeant Markowski," he said.

  "Tell me something I don't know," I said. "Like who you are, and what's on your mind."

  "You may call me Nikolai, if you wish," the ghoul said. "As to my purpose, it is to tell you that an important man would like to see you."

  "If the president sent you, tell him I'm busy," I said. "I didn't vote for him, anyway."

  He gave me a tight little smile. "Not someone quite that important, perhaps. But he is – or rather he represents – a man of substance, who has an interest in your current case."

  "We usually have several cases going at once," Karl told him. "Which one does your 'man of substance' have in mind?"

  The ghoul looked at Karl again, his eyes narrowed. After a moment he said, "Interesting. I was not told that the police employed
nosferatu
."

  "My name's not
nosferatu
, it's Renfer. Detective Renfer. And I asked you a
question
, punk."

  Karl's a James Bond nut, but now it sounded like he'd been watching one of Clint Eastwood's old "Dirty Harry, Monster Slayer" movies.

  He didn't seem to scare Nikolai. The ghoul looked Karl up and down before turning his gaze back to me. "I refer to the case of those… unsettling… DVDs, and the persons who are making them."

  Calling those DVDs "unsettling" was like telling a Jew that the Holocaust had been an "inconvenience". I guess Nikolai hadn't been affected by those horror shows the way Karl and I had. Maybe he'd even enjoyed them.

  "What do you know about those?" I asked him.

  "I?" The ghoul touched fingertips to his chest in an exaggerated show of innocence. "I know very little. But the man who sent me knows rather more. That is why he wishes to speak to you… officers."

  "And what's
his
name?" Karl asked. From the tone of his voice, he was getting ready to go all Dirty Harry on this little prick – for real. I was tempted to let him.

  "I'm sure he would rather tell you that himself, in person," the ghoul said. "I have a car parked down the block. If you would accompany me…?" He reached one hand into his pants pocket, but before he could withdraw it, the barrel of my Beretta was pressing against his forehead. "Don't," I said.

  The ghoul became as still as if he'd just been exposed to a Gorgon statue. My weapon was loaded with a mix of silver and cold iron, either of which would decorate the roof of the car with Nikolai's brains. Ghouls live a long time, but they're not immortal – and they sure as shit aren't invulnerable.

  "Two things," I said. "One: we're not going anywhere with you. Tell us where your mysterious employer is, and we'll consider paying a call on him sometime. Two: unless you're just real glad to see us, I'm pretty sure that pocket you're reaching into contains a good-sized knife, probably a switchblade, which is illegal in this state. If your hand comes out holding anything but car keys, I'll give you a third eye – right between the two you have now. Understand me?"

  The little bastard's eyes were wide now, and instead of another smart-ass remark, he just said, "Uh-huh."

  "Not to worry, though," Karl said, and I could hear the nasty smile in his voice. "If things don't work out for you, there's a real nice funeral home here in town, run by a guy named Barney Ghougle. That's not his real name, but it's what we all call him. Maybe he's a relative of yours? I bet he'd find you real tasty."

  Although ghouls eat human flesh, they are terrified by the idea that someone might do the same to them after death. That's why every ghoul I've ever known has standing instructions for cremation when they die. Go figure.

  Even in the feeble light from a nearby street lamp, I could see that the ghoul was sweating now. He said, "I – I meant no offense, I assure you."

  "Of course you didn't," I said, without moving the gun a millimeter. "Now – where does your boss hang out?"

  "Radisson hotel, room 431." It was like he couldn't get the words out fast enough.

  "And his name?" I pressed the muzzle against his skull a little harder.

  "Milo. His name is Milo."