Evil Ways (14 page)

When Pardee put the phone down this time, he was in considerably better humor. It might be that the remaining white bitches could be allowed to live. They would be cowering in their holes like frightened rabbits now, and would offer no interference to the Ceremony
— which was, after all, the whole point of the murders.

But not Chastain. Pardee regarded being thwarted twice as a personal insult. In any case, he and Chastain had some unfinished business between them. Pardee planned to mark that particular account "Paid in Full" soon enough.

His mistake had been targeting Chastain with mundane hit men, equipped with a little magical power. But Baca was an adept of the black arts, and there would be no mistakes this time.

Pardee was so pleased with himself that he thought a little celebration was in order. He picked up his phone again. "Send Nancy and Chantelle in to me. Yes, now. And what's that new girl's name
—Margaret?—send her in, as well."

A contented smile appeared on Pardee's lean face. A couple of hours' recreation, and then he would make his report to Grobius. The old man should be pleased
—everything was going so
well.

"Yeah, local law's been out here for about an hour. State Police, County Sheriff's people, and some cop, works for the township, who I swear could have been the model for Barney Fife."

"You're not old enough to remember that show, Colleen."

"I'm old enough to watch cable TV at two in the morning. Hold on a sec
—there's a plane flying over."

"I wondered what that noise was."

"Sue? Can you hear me now?"

"Yeah, you're fine. Go on."

"So, I spent about half an hour giving my statement. They're with Fenton now."

"You sure he's okay?"

"Seems fine. No signs of concussion. They're trying to talk him into a visit to the hospital, but he's resisting. Don't blame him for that
— he wants to get inside that bitch's house, and so do I."

"Well, make the most of it, because I want you back here, tomorrow. Fenton can stay, but you've got a date with the Shooting Board."

"Oh, for the love of… do you know how long that's likely to take?"

"Nope, my crystal ball's in the shop, for an oil change. How's yours working?"

"You know what I mean, Sue. I'll have to write and file a report, then each of those guys has to get around to reading it, when it doesn't interfere with his golf date with some senator, then they've got to find a common empty slot in their schedules for a hearing… it's gonna take
weeks."

"Yeah, you're probably right. But rules is rules, kiddo. They get all huffy and officious down here when you kill somebody."

"That shoot was fucking righteous, Sue."

"I'm not saying it wasn't. From what you've described, it sounds like you had no choice at all. And the Board may well agree. But we've gotta go though the procedure. You know the regs, same as I do."

"Uh-huh. Sue?"

"That's my name, don't wear it out."

"I need to ask for a favor."

"Why do I have the feeling I'm not gonna like this? Go on, ask."

"I need you to put off filing a report on this incident."

"Sure, you do. How could I expect anything else? And I should risk my career over this, because…"

"Annie Levesque wasn't in this alone."

"Whoa, kiddo. It hasn't been determined that she was 'in' anything, yet."

"She killed one cop, and tried to kill two more, Sue. You figure she did that because she didn't like Fenton's aftershave?"

"Um. Okay, say you've got a point there. Well, we already figured there was some kind of conspiracy going on. That's why the Bureau's involved, remember?"

"The clock's ticking, Sue."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"The longer this goes on, the more kids are going to die."

"The investigation's not gonna stop just because you're cooling your heels down here in Quantico for a while. Fenton'll stay on it. Maybe I can find him another partner. Just for the interim. Maybe."

"Two 'maybes' means you can't really spare anybody, doesn't it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, fuck, it probably does. But Fenton's good, you know that."

"He's just one agent."

"Right. And if you were still there, it would be just two agents. You're good, too, kiddo. But you ain't no damn task force."

"I never claimed to be. But I'm… uniquely qualified for this investigation, Sue. It's very, very important that I be involved. Sue? You still there?"

"You're telling me this case is one of
those."

"One of what?"

"Woo-woo
stuff. Things that aren't supposed to happen, except they sometimes do."

"Yeah, I'm afraid so. It's one of those."

"Not to belabor the obvious, but
—you're sure?"

"Yeah, I am. For reasons I don't want to go into right now, I am absolutely fucking positive."

"Sweet fucking Jesus on a goddamn bicycle."

"Don't blaspheme Sue. It's not becoming."

"Yeah, and fuck you, too Colleen. All right, listen."

"Yes?"

"Sometimes emails go astray in cyberspace, and nobody can explain why. Like, say, the email I send to the board members about your little incident. If it doesn't bounce back to me, I could reasonably assume they'd received it, but they might not even know it existed. Shit like that happens, sometimes."

"I know. I'm pretty sure it's all Bill Gates's fault."

"Probably. Anyway, that might work
—for a while. But, here's the thing."

"What?"

"Your shooting, with attendant circumstances, is bound to make the local media. Hell, up there, it'll be a nine-day wonder. Biggest story since Farmer Brown's barn burned down."

"That's unkind
—but, yeah, I expect you're right."

"If it stays local, that's not a problem. But if one of the wire services picks it up, it's sure to get into the
Post
or the
Times.
That happens, and the game is up, over,
finito.
Guys on the board will see it, and they're gonna start asking me why they have to hear about an agent-involved shooting, with fatality resulting, from the goddamn papers."

"Yeah, I understand. Well, I guess that's a chance we'll have to take. Assuming you're willing to take it with me. Sue? Hello?"

"You know, we've been having all kinds of trouble with the damn computer system down here, Colleen. I think this stuff was obsolete when Bill Clinton was still getting his dick sucked in the Oval Office. Files are getting misplaced; even the email is messed up. In fact, I think I better file a trouble report with IT. They'll probably get around to it by Christmas.
Next
Christmas."

"Thanks, Sue, I appreciate this. I mean, a lot."

"Thank me by stopping these bastards from killing any more kids."

"That's just what I had in mind. Wait
—looks like Fenton's done giving his statement. He's waving me over and pointing at Annie's house. I think they're letting us inside."

"Then go and get your ass in there, girl."

"Yes,
ma'am."

Tristan Hardwick had lived in Northeast Ohio for all of his twenty-eight years, including the four he spent earning his degree in Accounting at Kent State University. He had first been exposed to the occult as an undergraduate, courtesy of a remarkable young woman named Anya Preston he'd happened to sit next to in his Comparative Religion class. Years later, he would wonder if their meeting was really as accidental as it had seemed at the time.

The two of them exchanged only a few words, but Hardwick made her laugh at some witticism about their professor, who was late to class, as usual. The prof's habitual tardiness allowed Hardwick and Anya to have a number of five-minute conversations in the weeks to follow. Hardwick eventually found the courage to ask her out (courage being called for because she was what guys in those days called a "fox," and he was what everybody in those days called a "nerd"). They went to the new Martin Scorsese movie the first time, then the next week to the Brown Derby for dinner, and gradually one thing led to another.

But in this instance, "one thing led to another" does not refer to sex
—although, beginning with their third date, Anya Preston was banging him stupid on a regular basis. Rather, their association led her to introduce him to some friends who, like Anya, were interested in the occult—especially black magic.

That, in turn, led to Hardwick being invited to some "gatherings" of a coven in Cleveland. These occasions consisted of a half-assed satanic ritual cribbed from books, followed by group sex involving all those present. Tristan Hardwick thought he'd died and gone to heaven
—failing to realize that he was, in fact, headed rapidly in the opposite direction.

It was through the Cleveland coven that Hardwick fell under the spell of Morgan Godfrey. Godfrey did not associate much with the Cleveland people, viewing them, quite rightly, as dilettantes more interested in the sex than in the rituals that preceded it. But there was some contact between them, and Tristan Hardwick's name came up, more than once.

Finally, Godfrey had issued an invitation, making clear that Hardwick was under no compulsion, and must attend of his own free will. That itself might have raised red flags for some, but not for Tristan Hardwick, who was, in effect, star-struck. People at the coven spoke of Morgan Godfrey in hushed tones, and Hardwick had come to understand that Godfrey was something that the coven members would never be: The Real Deal.

It was on a Friday night illuminated by the full moon that Tristan Hardwick made his way to the ritzy Cleveland suburb of Chagrin Falls, a name whose irony he came to appreciate only later.

Hardwick was not seen back in Kent until Monday, and he refused to speak of whatever he had seen, or done, at Morgan Godfrey's elegant home. He said nothing of the obscene rites, the blood sacrifice, the eating of human flesh, or the being who had been summoned to the gathering.

Hardwick never talked about what that being had offered him, and the price he had agreed, by most solemn oath, to pay. But if the phrase "changed man" has ever had true expression, it was in Tristan Hardwick. After that weekend, he became cold and remote, and stopped attending the coven's weekly ceremonies. He showed no more interest in sex with Anya Preston. His sense of humor, for which he was well known among his friends, disappeared entirely. In time, he moved into Morgan Godfrey's home as a permanent guest
—permanent, that is, until Godfrey introduced him to a man known only as Pardee. After that, Tristan Hardwick belonged to Pardee, body and
soul. In the years that followed, Hardwick had performed, faithfully and well, a number of unpleasant tasks on behalf of his master. Then the day came when Pardee sent him back to Kent, with instructions to wait, and watch, and prepare.

Six weeks ago, Hardwick had learned exactly what he had been preparing for. He was given a task, and he carried it out without flinching. But he was just a little careless, leaving some of his DNA behind at the scene of his butchery. However, the police had been over-zealous, neglecting to obtain a necessary search warrant, and once the judge had ruled the key evidence inadmissible and the D.A. had grudgingly released him, Tristan Hardwick thought his troubles were over. And so they were.

Until the night, two weeks later, when the knock came at his door.

Not unlike Caesar's Gaul, all American college towns are divided into three parts. There's the campus itself, usually a sprawling mass of concrete and brick (except in New England, where's it's usually wood, ivy, and rot), the jungle (where the students tend to reside and recreate), and the town (where the permanent residents live
—usually as far away from the campus and the jungle as they can get).

Morris and Libby had to drive through part of Kent's jungle to get from the Shady Tree Motel to the part of town where Tristan Hardwick lived. Libby was navigating, Morris's laptop open in front of her.

"Two more blocks," she said, "then make a left, at that light up ahead. See it?"

"Got it." Morris drove the rental car slowly, to avoid hitting any of the students who were crossing Water Street whenever and wherever they wished, heedless of traffic.

"I'm sorry about the accommodations, Libby. I figured we could have done better than the Shady Tree."

"Ordinarily, we would have. According to the AAA website, there are several places in town that sound rather nice. But I see on Kent State's home page that this is some kind of big alumni weekend. Not surprising that all the good places are booked. Anyway, I'm not especially dainty. Each room at our place has a bed and a shower, and that's all I really need. If the bugs prove to be a problem, I'll put a warding spell around the bed
—yours, too, if you want."

"I'll let you know, thanks. We'll just take a quick run past Hardwick's house, then go back to Roach Central. Maybe grab some sleep."

"I still don't understand what you're trying to accomplish with this… reconnaissance mission."

"Two things," Morris said. "One is to make sure he still lives there. Your witch sense will pick him up if he is, right?"