The Demon Trappers: Foretold (19 page)

As she sat in the sheriff’s office, people bustling around her, Riley was sure she’d been flattened by a truck. Her joints and muscles ached down to their
individual cells, her head throbbed and there were two points on her back that felt as if someone had driven spikes into them. She’d refused a trip to the ER. She could imagine what the
National Guild would make of that insurance report: Apprentice Demon Trapper nearly electrocuted by crazed mortician. She had enough notoriety as it was.

Simon sat next to her now, an ice pack pressed against a cheek that was already darkening, the beginning of a spectacular bruise. His shirt collar was ripped, and his lip was cracked and
bleeding. He had a dressing on his right hand and his knuckles were skinned.

As she’d tried to recover from the attack, he’d filled in the missing pieces: the longer he’d sat in the truck, the more anxious he’d become, so he decided to see what
was going on. When he found McGovern standing over Riley’s body, he’d lost it. Fortunately, the sheriff and the others had arrived just in time.

‘When are we leaving for the swamp?’ she pressed.

‘We can’t until morning,’ Martin replied. ‘We have no idea where Beck is, so we need daylight to try to track him. I know you’re frustrated. So am I, and I
don’t even like him.’

Not until morning.
This would be Beck’s second night alone.
He must think I’m not coming for him . . .
If he was still alive.

Simon touched her arm. ‘You OK?’

Riley shook her head, the tears burning. She swiped them away, angry that she had no way to stop them.

‘We’ll find him. We’ll bring him home,’ he said.

She nodded and then dug for a tissue in her pocket as Donovan entered the office. He laid numerous evidence bags on his desk.

‘McGovern had Beck’s phone and his gun. He’s asked for a lawyer so we won’t get anything more out of him.’ The sheriff sank into his chair. ‘But why?’
he asked, his voice rising in frustration. ‘What drove him to kidnapping and attempted murder? What is McGovern hiding?’

‘Perhaps I can shed some light on that darkness of yours,’ someone said from the office doorway.

Justine.

‘She’s back . . .’ Riley mumbled. Her jealousy raised its muzzle and scented blood.

The reporter looked perfect as usual. Her emerald-green eyes lacked dark circles underneath, her trouser suit didn’t display one wrinkle and her hair cascaded down her shoulders in
smouldering red waves. Justine chose a chair next to Riley, probably so everyone in the room could make the comparison between
together
and
total mess.

‘Have you found Beck yet?’ the reporter asked.

‘No. He’s somewhere in the swamp,’ Donovan replied.

The reporter frowned. ‘I know the undertaker’s secret and why he has turned violent as of late. In return, I want an exclusive on the story.’

Riley ground her teeth. She might hate Justine Armando, but the reporter was very good at her job. If anyone could unearth secrets and lies, it’d be the stick chick.

Donovan didn’t hesitate. ‘You got a deal. Talk to me.’

Justine retrieved a notebook from her expensive leather bag and opened it. Running down a page of notes with a polished fingernail, she began.

‘A decade ago a necromancer in Jacksonville began paying a few Florida undertakers to supply him with bodies suitable for reanimation. These bodies were sent for cremation by families who
didn’t want to sit vigil at the graveside.’ She shifted to another page of her notes. ‘In late 2009 two Georgia undertakers joined the scam. Bert McGovern was one of them. He
served as the collection point for corpses in the southern half of the state.’

‘Go on,’ the sheriff urged, sitting up in his chair now, his attention captured.

‘Instead of being cremated, bodies that were in good condition were transported to the summoner. McGovern filled the urns with concrete dust so the families had no idea their loved one was
being auctioned off to the highest bidder.’

‘My God,’ Riley murmured. That was too close to home after her father’s death.

‘One of the bereaved relatives saw their deceased sister in Orlando a few months after she’d died,’ Justine continued. ‘When the police checked it out, the summoner
stonewalled them. When my reporter friend heard about this, he began investigating the story.’

‘The Jacksonville Police Department know about all this?’

‘Yes. They arrested the necromancer earlier today.’

Justine closed her notebook, her brows furrowed. ‘I have no direct evidence, but I believe there is some connection between McGovern and the missing boys.’

‘There is now.’ Donovan chose a file from a stack and flipped it open. ‘On November 2011 the Keneally boys broke into three businesses in Sadlersville and stole mostly small
stuff to satisfy their growing drug habit. The sheriff at that time worked out a restitution plan, and they got a juvenile record out of the deal in exchange for returning the goods they’d
stolen.’

‘A juvenile record,’ Justine said, nodding in understanding. ‘No wonder I couldn’t find the connection. The boys’ parents said nothing about that, of
course.’

‘They robbed the tyre store and the video shop and . . . the funeral home. McGovern never reported the break-in and our office only found out about it after the sentencing. He claimed
they’d not taken anything so he hadn’t felt the need to file a complaint.’

Justine tapped her notebook with a gold pen. ‘If the brothers had found evidence of the corpse-running scheme during the break-in, McGovern would have been eager to pay them off to keep
them quiet.’

‘With drugs and booze from Cole Hadley,’ Donovan added. ‘McGovern was one of Hadley’s
customers
.’

‘That doesn’t explain why they went missing,’ Martin argued. ‘McGovern would have had to know the boys were in the swamp that weekend to kill them.’

‘Cole did,’ Riley said, finally seeing the pieces fit together. ‘He told Beck’s girlfriend he knew where the boys were going. Maybe he told McGovern.’

‘So the undertaker kills the two boys, but doesn’t know Beck is along for the trip because he’s asleep in the boat. Which still works in McGovern’s favour as
there’s someone to take the blame,’ Donovan said.

‘But why shoot the drug dealer?’ Simon asked.

‘Cole saw him in Beck’s truck the night Denver went missing so he tried to blackmail McGovern,’ Donovan replied. ‘Cole didn’t plan on an undertaker pulling a gun on
him.’

There was quiet for a time as each of them digested the news.

Riley closed her eyes. ‘So how do we find him? Can the park rangers help us?’

‘The Feds won’t authorize a chopper until four days have passed. We’ll do it ourselves,’ the sheriff explained. ‘There’ll be three teams. One will go in the
east entrance, just in case he’s down there, and the other two at Kingfisher Landing. Of those two teams one will take the canal to the west and the other to the south.’

The time for waiting was over. Now they’d be able to do something, even if it was nothing more than bringing Beck’s body home for burial.

The fever and body-wracking chills struck Beck with a ferocity he’d not anticipated. There’d been numerous demon wounds over the years, and after the first
they’d been mildly annoying. This time was different. He had no Holy Water to neutralize the toxin and his body was running on empty, the lack of food and enough clean water taking their
toll.

When he opened his eyes, there was someone watching him. It was a young Indian, a Seminole, indistinct in the night air. Donovan had told him the ghosts of the swamp’s dead would sometimes
appear. The brave inclined his head and then walked away into nothingness.

I’m dyin’.
There were no hysterics involved in that realization, because it was the truth. He’d been there before, after that roadside bombing in Afghanistan. Somehow
he’d survived.

But this time . . .

The chain wasn’t going to magically break or a buffet appear at his elbow, so that left two options: continue on to the grave or accept Hell’s bargain.

Another chill rolled through his body, clouding his sight. Beck curled up in a ball, shivering so intensely his muscles ached and his teeth chattered. In his fevered mind he saw Riley in the
coffee shop in Atlanta, laughing with Ori. She wasn’t looking for him. She’d left him behind.

‘Ya’ll . . . come . . . for . . . me,’ he whispered. ‘Ya won’t leave me here.’

‘She doesn’t care, trapper,’ the demon whispered in his mind. ‘Don’t die because of your pride. Accept Hell’s mark and live. You can get your revenge against
all those who hurt you.’

‘No.’

‘Paul Blackthorne gave us his soul. So can you. There is no shame in it. Your life is precious,’ the demon said.

‘Paul . . . isn’t in Hell now. He out . . . witted y’all.’ Beck issued a dry chuckle at the thought.

‘You’re mine, trapper. You will raise my stature in Hell, and I will find favour with the Prince again. You
will
give me your soul.’

‘Go screw yerself, demon.’

The fiend laughed, a sharp biting sound. ‘You mortals always say that, until the
very
end.’

It was nearly eight in the morning when she arrived at Kingfisher landing, still aching from the night before. Her guide, a guy named Ray, was hurrying as much as possible, but
it took time to do things right. What little patience Riley had was history: she wanted to be actively looking for Beck rather than cooling her heels at the dock.

Ray was in his early fifties and said he’d been conducting tours of the swamp for over a decade. That was reassuring. Donovan had warned her the journey would be at least five hours long,
then it’d take that much time to get back out to civilization. If Beck was in bad shape, he’d need food, water and first-aid supplies, not counting Holy Water if he’d tangled with
a demon. An early morning trip to the convenience store had netted those supplies and now they were packed into Beck’s duffel bag and Riley’s backpack. Everything was ready, but they
were missing someone, a man named Erik. So far he’d been a no show.

‘What about the other teams?’ she asked.

‘They went out a half hour ago.’

Like we should have.

Simon was on one of them and, to Riley’s surprise, Justine on another. The reporter had refused to stay in town, saying she’d always wanted to see what a swamp was really like.

Maybe an alligator will carry her off.

Ray dialled a number, then spoke with someone. His brow creased in frustration, then he hung up. ‘Erik has backed out of the trip. It’s just us unless I can find someone
else.’

Surprise
. ‘No, let’s hit the water,’ Riley replied. ‘Beck’s running out of time. We need to go now.’

Ray didn’t argue, but helped her into the boat and then pointed out the blankets underneath her seat. ‘It’ll get cold when we start moving.’

Riley unearthed one of the heavier ones, draping it over her knees. Fortunately she’d thought ahead and had added a few layers under her jacket and bought a stocking cap. As Ray did
something with the motor, she studied the area around her. The water was a perfect mirror, reflecting the tall trees and brown grasses along its edges. Birdsong reached her ears and every now and
then something would fit from treetop to treetop. There was a unique smell in the air, part decay, part fresh earth, overlaid by abundant moisture.

‘I’ll use the outboard for a while, then switch to the electric motor,’ her guide explained. ‘That way we’ll be able to hear Beck if he calls to us.’

‘Why not use it right now?’ she asked, concerned they might go right past him if he was injured.

‘It’s slower. As I see it, if I was going to get rid of someone in the swamp, I sure wouldn’t leave him close to the dock.’

Ray had a point. ‘What about the demons? Have you ever seen them?’

‘Yes, off and on over the years, but the swamp can play tricks on you when it wants to. If you’re out here on your own, I’ve heard they can be dangerous. Usually I’m
guiding a group so I’ve not had much trouble.’

Riley readjusted the thick blanket around her to stave off the chilly breeze blowing across the water. What would it be like for Beck? They really had no clue where to look and McGovern had
refused to help them by narrowing the search area. They were on their own.

Maybe we’re not
. She dug out the strange polished rock the woman had given her and held it tightly. At this point she’d do anything to find her missing guy.

‘Keep an eye on either side as we move along,’ Ray advised. ‘If you see broken branches or signs that someone might have been hauled on to the bank, call out. I’ll try to
do the same, but with the water level being lower than normal I’ll need to watch for submerged logs.’

He started the motor and they began to move down the canal. As Riley scanned the banks, only one word seemed to apply:
primordial
.

Okefenokee tolerated humans, at least for brief periods of time. Someone had dug the canal they were using – it was too straight for nature’s efforts – but those same people
had failed to tame the swamp. Just the opposite: the land of the trembling earth had tamed them.

Riley couldn’t quite understand how something so beautiful could be so alien. Thick cypresses grew on either side of the forty-foot-wide canal, massive giants with the roots buried deep in
the water. Cypress knees, bizarre knobbly monoliths, had formed around the base of the trees like small children. Even the water itself was strange, tea-coloured and reflective. She stared down at
it, unable to see very far under the surface.

Ray called out over the sound of the motor. ‘The water has tannic acid in it from the rotting vegetation. It’s perfect for the alligators. They can hover just beneath the surface and
wait for the right moment to grab a meal.’

Riley immediately leaned back away from the edge of the boat. She didn’t see any gators, but that didn’t mean one of them wasn’t scoping her out.

Sometime later Ray cut the throttle and switched over to the electric motor and sudden stillness enveloped them like shroud. As he studied the water in front of him, he gave her more of
Okefenokee’s history, how a canal system had been dug in the late 1800s to try to drain the swamp, and that the project was eventually abandoned. Then came the loggers who cut massive amounts
of timber. The canal they were floating on was constructed in the 1950s to dredge peat. Now the place was federal park land.