The White Night (22 page)

Jaynes is short,
stout, built like a small refrigerator with close-cropped salt and pepper hair.
She didn’t smile or speak once earlier.

I bet she’s fun at
parties.

Carson takes the
lead and offers Jaynes the lone remaining chair. She silently declines with a
raised hand and backs herself into the corner, standing with meaty hands buried
in her pockets. Nonchalant. Staring. Or glaring, I should say. There’s a
measure of suspicion and anger there.

I pry my eyes from
her and turn back to the more welcoming grin of Carson. I’m probably wrong
about that, too. I doubt it’s welcoming. More like, ‘I know something you
don’t.’

I know what tricks
are coming, but I don’t feel like playing games, so I relent and speak first.

“Detective.”

“Mr. Ford.”

“Anybody check on
my dog?”

The corners of his
mouth dip as he looks down and away.

I feel my heart
burning with dread. “Is he okay?” I ask, leaning forward.

Thank God, he
nods. Hallelujah. “He’ll be fine in a few days. The vet said he’s a little
banged up and scared to death whenever anyone tries to get close to him, but
Animal Control has him on sedatives down at the pound. Hate that for you. Got a
sweet little poochie myself.”

“Thanks.”

“Damn shame when
trauma like that happens to a good animal.”

“Trauma?”

Carson angles his
head backward, scrunching up his forehead. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

Over his shoulder,
he says back to Jaynes, “Goddamn it, Sheila. They did it again, didn’t they?
Lazy sons of—never mind.” To me, he adds, “I see you got coffee. Need anything
else? Water maybe?”

“I’m fine.”

He intertwines his
fingers and props himself up on the table. “Somebody was supposed to come in
and brief you. It’s the young kids these days, you feel me? I can’t get nobody
to do right by anybody.” He shakes his head in disgust, looking up at the
ceiling like he’s reminiscing about the good ol’ days when people actually did
what they were asked.

Has that ever been
the case?

I don’t know
whether this is a legitimate show of consternation, or if he’s simply playing
Good Cop and trying to ease me into his news that I’ll be arrested for murder.

Carson clears his
throat. It’s long and rattling, like he’s shaking something loose after years
of smoking. He says, “Anyway, your dog will be fine eventually. Sorry we left
you waiting so long. Had some things to check out before we had a chat, like
looking at the condo. Nice place you got there, right up on the ocean like
that. You own it?”

“Rental.”

“Ah. Shame. Nice
place from the outside, but when we got up to your floor, the door was open,
the place was torn all to shit like somebody set off a bomb inside a hoarder’s
house, and there was no sign of Ellen Coeburn. Who knows how he did it, but by
God, your petrified pup had somehow managed to work himself under the sofa. You
see how big I am. I’da smashed him if I’d sat down.”

“We wouldn’t want
that,” I mutter, already tired of the banter. Now that I know Ulie is okay,
let’s get to the business of proving my innocence. I ask the detective, “Are
there security cameras there? Any idea about what happened to her?”

“She’s ninety
years old and blind, Mr. Ford. She didn’t get that far.” I almost give him a
derisive snort, wanting to tell him about how much he doesn’t know. Instead, I
nod in mock acceptance. “But you wanna know the craziest thing? They picked her
up knocking on some scared neighbor lady’s door, talking about how she needed
inside and was hungry. Miss Lane, that’s the neighbor, she was scared to let
her come in on account of how weird her eyes looked. You wouldn’t know anything
about that, would you?”

I lift one
shoulder and let it drop. He knows something strange is going on. He knows who
I am and what I do—or did—for a living. I think I need to know where I stand
before I admit to anything.

He stares at me so
long, I become aware of the watch ticking on his wrist. This time, I wait him
out. He eventually says, “Those two boys in the bathtub. Horrible. Just
horrible. Know anything about them? Who they are? What in the hell happened to
them?”

“They were already
there. I found them that way.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Okay. And did you notice anything about their eyes?”

“I should probably
get a lawyer before I answer much more.”

Carson’s beaming
smile comes back. “
Naw
, no need to do that. We’re just having a
conversation.”

“Are you going to
arrest me, Detective?”

Carson turns to
Jaynes. She dips her chin, indicating her agreement with some unspoken
directive.

“In all my years,
Mr. Ford, I don’t know if I’ve ever quite seen anything like this. Being who
you are, and seeing as how you do what you do, I’d expect some cooperation with
such strange matters. You are one lucky so-and-so, you know that?”

“How so?”

“Detective Jaynes
and I reviewed your video evidence, and we both agree that it’s enough to show
that you acted in self-defense, at least when it comes to Miss Coeburn. Not to
mention the fact that we ran some quick tests and found the boys’ DNA
underneath her fingernails. The scratches on their arms connect the dots
there.”

“So you’re saying
she murdered them?”

“We’re not saying
anything of the sort,” he says. “Not yet.”

“But you’re not
accusing me of anything?”

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Cooperation.” He
flicks a look over his shoulder at the two-way mirror. “Help. Things like that.
Seems as if you might hold your future in your hands.”

Shit. No
he’s
handing me the bitter apple. But I have to eat it. This time, at least.

I ask, “Am I free
to ask questions?”

“Be my guest.”

“Are you looking
for the boys’ families?”

“Trying. It’ll be
a while. You wouldn’t believe how many kids go missing each year.” He leans
back in the chair. The flimsy, plastic construction groans in protest. “So the question
remains—
questions
, actually—why did you set that camera up to begin
with, what language is she speaking, how did she get up again, and what’s the
deal with their eyes? All four of them. They got Ellen down in holding and her
eyeballs are blacker than coal. All of the eye. The whole thing. And then the
deceased individuals—the two boys and Miss Coeburn, hollowed out sockets. Black
liquid crusted around them.”

“Whoa,” I say, sitting
straighter. “Did you say she got up again?”

“Yes, sir. After
they put you in the car. Apparently you were a couple of blocks away by the
time the EMTs were getting ready to zip her into the trash bag. Miss Coeburn
popped straight up off the ground and rushed my boys, poker sticking out of her
neck. They fired two shots in self-defense, purely reactionary. One bullet centered
her forehead and dropped her. We can show you on the video later. Helps your
case that we didn’t find that until after the fact. Stress does things to a
man, but had we listened to your incoherent babble upon arrival, we might not
have that evidence available, except for eyewitness accounts and what not.”

“She got up. Jesus.”

“I’m fairly
certain he had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, I hear that
a lot. And you asked
what language
was she speaking? What does that
mean?”

“The language Miss
Coeburn is speaking in your recording.”

“It wasn’t
English?”

Carson presses his
lips together, flicks a look at Jaynes, then back to me. “You understood her
when she was talking?”

“Yeah. I mean, I
think so.”

“Mr. Ford, one of
the reasons we were delayed is because it took us a while to find a linguistics
expert at this hour. Tracked down a professor up at Oregon State and he says
he’s never heard it before, but it sounds ancient. Biblical, even. Or probably
older. As in, from what he can tell, there are no earthly languages existing
today that are a derivative of what she’s speaking.”

“I—uh. Wow. I
don’t know.”

“And you say you
understood every word of it?”

“I thought I did.
It’s possible she had me under—” I almost say ‘hypnotic spell’ but that would
sound even more ridiculous that everything we’re discussing. “Under, um, I mean
on… on drugs?”

“You’re not
exhibiting any signs.”

“I don’t know. I
really don’t.”

“What in the hell
are we dealing with here, son?”

I take a deep breath
and hold it, exhaling. “You really want to know the truth? I need some kind of
guarantee. Something in writing, especially without a lawyer here. That’s
probably not possible but—”

“Hang on.”
Annoyed, Jaynes finally speaks up from her perch in the corner. “We’re not
going to arrest you, Mr. Ford. We’re familiar with your history, and we’re
familiar with what you’ve been doing with other departments since your
unfortunate event with the Hopper child. We’re asking for your help, and when
you give it to us, you’ll be free to go.”

I sense an
opportunity here. Should I take it? What do I have to lose?

“And I’m asking
you for a written guarantee. Whatever you can do that’ll hold up in court, if
it comes to that.”

She says, “We’ll
see what we can do.”

I start to
protest, but Carson interrupts me, saying, “That’ll have to be good enough for
now, Mr. Ford. We’re good people. Trustworthy.”

“Fine. So, we’re
looking at a little pro bono work in exchange for maybe overlooking some of the
gray areas of my involvement?”

“Careful,” Jaynes
says, smirking, “verbally confirming that could be construed as an attempt to
bribe an officer of the law.”

I hold up my
palms, feeling that intense, nervous urge to piss. That backfired.

“But I didn’t hear
a word of it,” she adds. “You, Carson?”

“Not a bit, no,
but if I
had
heard something I’d say it sounded like a fair deal.”

“One more question
first.”

“Shoot.”

“Lauren’s a
celebrity. How’re you gonna approach the news of her, uh,
death
?
Publicly, I mean.”

“It’ll be handled.
If
this
is what you’re asking, your involvement will be…minimal.”

I lift my eyes to
the video camera mounted in the corner of the room. “Is this going on record?”

“Maybe not all of
it.”

“Okay then.” We
shake hands. I feel slightly sleazy for trying to protect myself at the expense
of Lauren’s death, but if I’m going to save Chelsea from a Tier One demon, I
need the freedom to move about.

Coeburn, I’ll
say an extra Hail Mary for you.

Jaynes says, “Tell
us a story, Mr. Ford.”

Well, shit. Here
we go. Let’s see how open-minded these two can be.

“Have you guys
ever heard of the black-eyed children?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Mike Long

Hours pass with no
action.

This is not what I
wanted.

The longer
Dakota’s unwelcome visitor hangs back without manifesting, the longer he’s able
to store up energy for when he does come through the portal and graces us with
his presence.

Jerk.

We move from room
to room, checking and rechecking the thermal imager, asking questions, trying
to elicit a response. So much uneventful time crawls by that I begin to
consider taunting him simply to see if that will create some kind of reaction.
With demons, however, taunting is never a good idea, even with an experienced
team like Ford and me. Those guys over on “the other channel,” those dudes from
Ghost Bros & Company
, they found out firsthand what can happen when
you taunt a demon with inexperienced members along. I think that poor dude that
took the strongest hit might still be hanging out in a padded room, wearing the
latest straightjacket designed by Martha Stewart.

Anyway. We’re
bored. You can’t make something manifest, so Dakota invites me to the kitchen
for a snack, and on the way down the stairs, she asks, after she’s been
tortured by this thing for weeks, why isn’t it showing up now when we need it
to?

“In the world of
paranormal investigations, you take what you can get and be thankful for it.
They don’t operate on our schedules or on our planes of existence. That said, I’m
starting to think that this is just going to be one of those nights where
nothing happens. Ford and I hated that shit with a passion, and it occurred
more often that we like to admit.

“There were times
when we’d go into an investigation that promised a freakin’
goldmine
of
evidence based on the strength of a witness’s testimony, and then, zilch.
Twelve hour days over a week’s worth of recording to get one shitty, grainy,
garbled EVP that may have been a barking dog somewhere else in the
neighborhood. Set up, break it down, do it all over again, and you get static
and hours of video of a high-backed chair sitting in a bedroom. Whoopee!”

We reach the
bottom floor, turn right, and head back into the kitchen. The blinds are open,
just as Dakota left them earlier, and the moon provides enough light for her to
move about without flipping any switches. She pulls two plates out of a cabinet,
asks me if I’d like some coffee, and pulls a couple of mugs down from an upper
shelf.

She starts pulling
a snack together while I go on blathering about fruitless investigations. “The
Paranormal Channel would be out an ungodly amount of money paying for the whole
crew to travel to the location, plus the equipment transfer costs, the stipend
they paid to the witnesses and all that stuff. Somehow, Ford and I would end up
taking the heat for it, no matter how often we tried to explain to the suits
writing the checks that we couldn’t
make
ghosts show up no more than we
could ask the sky to turn pink on command.”

Dakota has one of
those fancy, single-cup brew devices, and by the time I’m finished with my mini
tirade, she’s already handing me a cup of black coffee. I decline sugar and
sweetener both.

I take a sip and
get back to it.

“Actually, I know why
they’d pin the heat on me and Ford. Carla threw us under the bus every chance
she got. I’m sure I hate her as much as Ford does, and after we screwed up
Chelsea’s life, I swore on
my
children’s lives that I would never work
with her again. And yet, here I am, trying to talk Ford into doing this goddamn
documentary, canoodling with that she-demon in Louboutin pumps, because that’s
where the money is.” I put a spoon in my coffee and stir it, pointlessly, since
it’s free of additives, while I wait on her to tell me it’s okay to sell my
soul.

Instead, she
jokes, “I’m just surprised you know what Louboutins are.”

“You’re aware of
the woman I married, right?”

“Ah, that explains
it.” Dakota plops down at the kitchen table with me, sliding a bowl of hummus
and some carrots in between us. As I’m contemplating how well that’ll pair with
coffee, she licks her index finger and says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Might be a touchy
subject.”

“I doubt you can
offend me.”

She sips from her
coffee mug, eyes me over the rim. She sputters through a number of false
starts, then says, “You
do
understand that if Toni’s cheating on you,
you don’t have to compromise your principles to keep her happy with the new
money, right? Just hire a private investigator, get some pics of her and this
Armando guy together, and boom. No court is going to deny that. You sail off
into the sunset free of the gold-digger with your kids in tow.”

“While that may be
true,” I say, mouthing the words around a crunchy carrot, “there’s no money
left. At least nothing substantial. Living expenses and some decent royalty
checks from syndication. That’s about all. It’s barely enough for her to keep
up appearances. And, supposing the courts miraculously decided to side with the
mother after evidence of infidelity—no, trust me, she’d probably fight for
negligence since I was gone for so many years—the kids won’t have anything. Not
what they
could
, anyway. They’d likely go with her anyway because Dear
Old Dad will be the pitiful sap who’s too broke to pay for the Xbox and
smartphones. Hell, I don’t even know what ‘tween kids are into nowadays.
Anyway, if she wants a divorce, so be it. Let her have it. I hardly have half
of anything for her to take, regardless, and the least I can do is spend some
time filming this documentary, as long as I can talk Ford into it, and then
take whatever I earn to set up a trust fund for my children. I’m sure some of
our lawyer fans of
Graveyard
could figure out how to protect anything I
earn from the movie so she can’t get to it. I’m not even betting on that, to be
honest. The main goal is to make sure the kids are good.”

Dakota nods, but
doesn’t say anything. I think she gets it, yet she seems sad.

“What’s wrong?”

She taps a packet
of artificial sweetener into her coffee and stirs it before answering, “Maybe I
have no right to be, because really, we’ve only known each other for less than
a day, but I’m worried about you.”

I wave her off and
say, “Nah, don’t be. It’s like I’m sad, but not really, because I kinda saw it
coming from a mile away. I
tried
to salvage things, and actually wanted
it to work on some level because there really were some good times in the past.
I guess—it’s just—when you know it’s time to move on, it’s not that bad. I’ll
be fine.”

“Fine speech,” she
says, grinning slightly, “but that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about going
to war with—what did you call it? Chelsea’s right-hander? What happens if you
get possessed while you’re filming? What happens if they commit you to some
asylum like that kid from
Ghost Bros
?”

The lady knows her
trivia. I reassure her that it won’t happen, that even if I convince Ford to
sign on, we’re experienced, and we know our limits. Besides, now that we know
what we’re dealing with, we’re primed to win.

Irritated, Dakota
says, “But
what if
, Mike. What if something happens? How in the hell am
I going to cook you dinner if they won’t let you have a fork in your padded
cell?”

Oh.
Ooooh
.

I see it now.
She’s
that
kind of worried—like, don’t screw up the possibilities by
having a demon go
nom-nom-nom
on your soul.

Damn, that’s not
at all what I expec—

Crash!

Crash!

Crash!

“Behind me. Now,”
I order, springing up to my feet, taking Dakota’s arm, and slinging her back to
where I can use my body as a shield. Across the kitchen, over the coffeemaker,
three of the glass-paned cabinet doors have shattered like some pissed off
teenager put his fist through them.

And, seeing as how
there’s no mop-haired brat around, my best guess is that Dakota’s interloper drew
in ample energy to make himself known.

Three more glass
panes in the cabinet doors disintegrate—
crash! crash! crash!
—in rapid
succession, coming closer to where we stand.

Dakota screams and
tries to hide her face between my shoulder blades, her fingers clutching my
t-shirt, wadding it up in her fists. I reach around, put a hand on her lower
back and pat her, urging her to retreat into the next room. “Go, go, go,” I
whisper, realizing that we foolishly left all of our equipment on a hallway
table where we were last investigating. We’re blind to any kind of attack. I
order Dakota upstairs and follow along behind her, sprinting up them, taking
them by twos as the stairwell curves around and opens on the middle landing.

“Back to the
office. Get the thermal cam ready,” I tell her. “Take one of these.” I yank a
four-ounce bottle of holy water free from the runner’s fanny pack and shove it
into her hand. “Stay right back in the corner, with the thermal cam focused on
the doorway, and if you see it coming through—”

“How will I know?”
She can’t hide the quiver in her voice.

“Remember what I
told you? About the different colors for different heat signatures? You’ll
know. You can tell. Just keep repeating the Lord’s Prayer and douse it with the
holy water.”

I move to leave.
Her free hand whips out and wraps around my wrist, fingernails digging into
that soft spot where you check for a pulse. “Wait, what’re you doing?”

“Going to get rid
of it.”

Her eyes widen to
the size of sand dollars. “No, don’t leave me here. Not by myself.”

“You’re staying.
End of story.”

“No—”

From some far off
corner of Dakota’s beachfront mansion, a door slams, and then another.

“Stop,” I say,
stepping closer to her, cupping my hands on her shoulders, soft and reassuring,
“I know this seems like some Hollywood ending where the hero leaves the leading
lady behind and runs off to beat the bad guy—”

“Don’t go.”

“Just stay.
Please. You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. A few prayers, some holy water cocktail,
and I’ll send this dude packing.”

From downstairs
comes the thrashing, clattering sound of a kitchen chair flung across a tile
floor.

The living room
television cuts on at full volume. It shuts off again.

On again, off
again.

“
Ted, what we
”
… “
going on
” … “
the Republican party absolutely can’t
…”

“Really? Political
talking heads?” I say, trying to bring some much needed levity into the moment.

“Do
not
leave me here,” she says, and it’s a mixture of anger and fear.

“I have to. You
know how you’re worried about me and Chelsea’s demon? Same thing. I can’t let
anything happen to you. I couldn’t live with myself. I know how to handle these
things, and you have to trust me.”

“You said it was
stronger than you thought. Those awful horns, remember?

“And I did, but
that doesn’t mean—whoa.” The lights in the stairwell flicker like a strobe
light at some juiced up rave party. “Gotta go.”

I pull away as Dakota
lets go of me, mouth pursed, her breath forced and heavy through her nostrils
like she just finished a marathon. She pounces, surprising me with a kiss on
the cheek.

I might have about
seven seconds to relish the soft, tender touch of her lips on my skin before the
demon is upon us, and I plan to use every single one while I stand here,
gawking at her. I lift a hand and—

Outside of the
open office door, a disembodied voice that sounds like the scream of a thousand
souls being forced through a wood chipper says, “Hello, my pretty one.”

Dakota says, “Oh
shit,” and tries to pull me into the corner with her.

I yank my hand
free and reach for the remaining holy water containers. The spare one goes in
my pocket and the other two are in my fists, locked and loaded.

A black, misty
shape appears about head high, the smoky tendrils wrapping around the doorjamb
like fingers clasping onto it. The shape grows. A head and shoulders peek
around the edge, billowing, swirling, pulling itself into the room.

The voice changes
to a haunting, childish tone as it emanates from everywhere and nowhere at once
when it sings, “You want her. You can’t have her. She’s miiiiine!”

Then it hisses,
unbearably loud, and pulls itself into the room.

Dakota screams.

The mist moves
with so much speed.

My hands fly up
and I clamp down on the bottles of holy water, squeezing as hard as I can, shouting,
“Our Father, who art in Heav—
ungh
!” as it hurtles into my chest. I feel
as if someone has reached inside my lungs and replaced the air with boiling gasoline.

I blink, once,
twice. Unsteady. Off balance.

I feel invaded.

I feel murky.
Cold.

And then a voice
in my head tells me to face Dakota.

***

Dakota watches
every terrifying second in slow motion. Her head has grown thick with pressure,
as if she’s submerged and can’t reach the surface. Her heartbeat thumping in
her ears sounds like the inside of a womb. She loses the feeling in her hands
as the black, swirling mist surges into the room, and the small, seemingly
useless bottle of holy water slips from her fingers. She hears the faint plunk
on the carpet when it lands at her feet.

She screams, covers
her mouth.

The entity hurtles
straight at Mike’s chest as he slings holy water at it.

He tries to
pray—stops with a grunt—and goes eerily hushed for a moment before he begins
turning around slowly, as if he’s controlled by something else.

The dark mist is
gone. Now it’s only her and Mike.

She can sense that
his energy has changed before he has fully turned to face her.