Chapter 59 Black Death
Black Death
The fog was not wispy like a spider’s web, but thick. Hazed tentacles wrapped around tree trunks, giving the impression the treetops floated above the ground. It was the kind of fog that would cloak any flashlight beam.
Not that Black Death needed light to see. She’d always loved the fog, almost as much as she loved the night. She’d surprised many victims emerging from the layers of mist and darkness like a ghost. The sounds of their terrified screams sung a beautiful tune in her ears.
The house loomed out from the darkness and mist on top of a rolling hill.
In the daylight, the front porch provided a spectacular view across the farmed ground.
Out the front a security guard slept soundly in his car.
His surveillance of the property was less than spectacular.
There were cameras set up around the perimeter of the house.
All motion censored, none of which were capable of catching the speed with which she moved.
Even if by some miracle one caught a flash of her, she wore a black wig, brown contacts, and a few layers under a hooded top.
All of which served to make her look larger framed than she was, and hid her face.
From any stilled shot she would be unrecognisable.
This was the sixth house she’d searched.
The second one tonight. It was 2 a.m., she needed to finish and get back before daybreak.
As much as it pained her to admit, she’d made a mistake in one of her searches.
When she had searched the Tolle’s, she’d trashed the house, taken a few jewels and thrown them in the river to give the appearance of a burglary.
It’d seemed good in theory, but theory wasn’t an exact science, and it threw a microscope on the thing she was looking for—the grimoire.
Since a few of the ancestors of founding families had been disposed of, every family with historic links that might have the grimoire hidden had updated their security.
Still, it was an inconvenience, rather than a problem.
She’d searched five others from original families without anyone knowing she’d been there. Now, she was running out of both patience and places to look. If she didn’t find it soon, she’d need to go back and start tearing the walls, and people, apart.
The old farmhouse, a sprawling timber-clad home, was run down.
She remembered a time when the house and land were beautiful.
It was a grand place, the epitome of luxury.
Now the white paint had peeled back, rotted boards peered out from beneath the shedding facade, like sets of reptilian eyes.
The veranda sloped and was in dire need of repair.
She’d attended a party here once, when Boris Thompson’s great, great, grandfather had owned it.
It was handed down through the sons until it ended up with Boris.
A spoilt boy, who she’d never liked as a child.
He’d made a string of bad business decisions and lost the wealth his father had left him.
His wife had left him five years ago, who could blame her, and yet he refused to sign the agreement for the development that would give him access to over a million dollars.
It would clear his debts and restart his dying farm.
She had to wonder why—what did he know? What was he hiding?
Something far more valuable than a million plus dollars, perhaps.
Black Death moved silently to the back door and turned the handle. It was locked. Not that a lock could stop her.
The inside of the house replicated the outside.
Grime-coated wallpaper peeled back from the towering walls like shredded skin.
Black Death crinkled her nose. A musty, damp and rotted stench filled her nostrils.
She looked down at some of the cause of the stench, a pair of mud crusted steel-capped boots.
Charming. Hadn’t he heard of bicarb soda.
She moved silently through the hallway. She glanced into the kitchen.
Dirty plates and empty beer cans crowded the bench tops.
If the state of the house was a reflection of Thompson’s life, clearly it was a mess.
The first place she went to was the study.
Bookcases covered three-quarters of the room from floor to ceiling, filled with old-style, hard cover books.
It would be too observable to keep the spellbook there.
But humans were not known to be the sharpest of creatures, so she scanned it.
By the side window a wooden desk was covered in a stack of paperwork with bright red overdue notices stamped on top.
She opened the desk drawers and rifled through.
More paperwork, a stapler, ruler, pens. He was old school, there was no computer.
She felt for hidden compartments under the desk’s rim and beneath the drawers, and found nothing.
A quick search of the rest of the drawers, even the locked ones, held nothing of interest either. Frustrated, she gritted her teeth.
She heard Boris stir, snort, fart, and yawn. The groan of the bed, then his steps, and the creaking of stairs. Fuck sakes. He was coming down. A normal intruder might have figured Boris heard them. She held no such reservations.
She slipped on silent feet behind the door. Boris walked straight past, naked, in a sleepy daze, toward the kitchen. The clinking of glass, the sound of a running tap, gulping.
She waited for him to go back to bed. He didn’t.
He went to the lounge and turned on the television.
Christ. She moved to the bedroom. The moonlight swept faintly across the middle of the room, casting shadows in every corner.
She scanned the room. It was standard in all its dreariness.
A fabric armchair sat in the corner. Wooden beside tables, cream lamps.
On the fireplace mantel was an image of him with his ex-wife.
She rifled through the beside tables first and found nothing of interest, unless one counted a bottle of baby oil and a couple of well-worn porn magazines as interesting.
She knocked softly on walls, listening and feeling for inconsistencies.
Went to the closet, it was too obvious a spot, but she checked anyway.
She pulled out suitcases, opened them, leafed through more pictures of him and his wife.
There was a picture of them smiling in front of the Eiffel tower. She turned the image over.
Jane and Boris, honeymoon, 2004.
The edges were bowed, as if it had been viewed a lot.
Evidence he hadn’t moved on. If she had the mind to, she might have felt sorry for him, but she didn’t.
Humans were a pest. The only thing they were good for was food.
To her, beyond feeding, they were no more important than a cockroach.
One she’d happily stomp on and think nothing of it.
She heard his footsteps coming her way, she fought to contain her annoyance, at this rate she’d never get done.
He opened the bedroom door, pulled back the bed covers and then he paused, as if some primal instinctive knowing told him something was there.
She felt her temper flare. But she could disappear and be gone before he turned back.
He’d never know she’s been. She’d have to come back another time to finish her search.
He spun around. She stepped out of the shadows.
He jumped when he saw her, his eyes wide, jaw ajar. His heart pounded on his fibs. He clutched his hands over his penis.
“Who the fuck are you?” he said, his voice came out high.
He was lean, strong, well-hung. Too old for her.
“That’s really none of your concern,” she spoke politely, “please get yourself dressed and then sit, Boris.” She indicated with her hand to the chair in the corner.
He appraised her. She watched the emotions change on his face.
First shock, then fear, then anger. His fists clenched by his sides.
The apple on his neck bobbled in and out.
He wasn’t the type to take any attack lying down.
He glanced at the bedside drawer. His handgun was in there.
He was already calculating if he could get to it before she could pull the gun he assumed she had under her layers of clothing.
“Get out of my house, you fucking psycho,” he shouted, attempting to appear brave but not completely covering the edge of fear in his voice.
Fucking psycho. How rude. He would need to be taught a lesson.
She removed her hood. Curled her top lip, razor sharp teeth glinted into the night. She urged a black web to weave over her eyes, until they were so black they looked bottomless.
He cowered, stumbled backward, and yelped like a frightened puppy.
“I said, get dressed and sit.”
“What . . . wh-what are you?” his voice was tight and breaking, eyes wider than dinner plates. He clutched at his jewels as if they are the most precious thing he had to protect. Never mind his heart and brain.
She contained an eye roll and instead barked, “Now.”
Her voice was sharp enough to jerk him into motion.
She watched him with cool indifference as he rushed to the drawer.
With shaking hands, he opened it and pulled out a blue check shirt.
The kind every farmer wore, as if some creed you signed when you decided to farm included a check flannel shirt, a wide brimmed cowboy hat and mid wash blue jeans.
She watched with faint amusement as he pulled mid wash denim jeans out.
Reefing his foot awkwardly into one leg, he kept his eyes firmly on her.
He lost his balance, jumped to maintain it and tugged at the leg.
Why was it all men were unable to do two things at once?
His other foot slipped into the waiting jean leg, he yanked them up, keeping an eye on her as the zip moved into place.
He would defend himself or try to, she judged.
He walked to the chair and sat. He rubbed his sweaty hands onto the legs of his jeans, glanced at the drawer again.
Then out the window, calculating if he called out would the security guard hear him. He wouldn’t.
She stepped forward. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?” he stammered, “what . . . the hell are you?”
She lifted her top lip, revealing needle sharp teeth again. He shuddered all over and shrunk back in his chair.
“Boris, I asked you a question, and I’m only going to ask you once more, where the fuck is the book?”
Sweat beaded on his forehead, his breaths were rapid, shallow. His heart beat like a scared gazelle. She lifted her head and drew in the sweet scent of fear. The smell seeped down her nose into the empty pit of her stomach. She was hungry, ravenous actually. Maybe one little bite wouldn’t hurt.
He gulped and threw out his hands. Panic creased his brow, wrinkling his forehead. “What book? I don’t what you’re talking about!”
She cocked her head to the side.“What do you know about the waters in the hills?”
“What?” He looked confused. The realization didn’t rush to his face, instead it dawned slowly, now he looked perplexed and annoyed. “Jesus, lady, that’s just a bunch of made-up, bullshit rumors.”
Black Death raised her perfectly designed eyebrows. “Really? Then why didn’t you sign over your shares in the land?”
His hands gripped tight to arms of his chair, as if he’d use them to propel himself forward. “Because my father hated Jefferson, there was no way I was letting that scum make money off his land.”
“Where’s the book?” she repeated.
He sat back, lifted his chin. “There’s no book.”
“Really?” She watched him. His face had blanked. If he knew something he wasn’t going to tell her. “What about Jane—might she know?”
He sat forward, his face reddened, his jaw muscles twitched. “You leave her alone,” he grated, his eyes involuntarily moving to the image on the mantel piece.
The fool still loved the woman who’d left him years ago, she understood it, the feeling of your chest being crushed from the inside out, the swooping hollow in your stomach.
She felt an uncharacteristic flare of sympathy.
She supposed it was normal to feel empathy sometimes, it wasn’t like she was a psychopath.
She moved over and picked up Jane’s image, studying it. She ran a claw slowly down the glass pain. The sound of screeching filled the room. Boris shuddered.
“Lovely,” she said, like she wasn’t lovely at all, because she wasn’t. Boris tensed so tight his neck muscle bulged. His Adam’s apple bobbed.
“Do I need to have a chat to her too, Boris?” She sat the photograph in a leisurely movement on the bed.
He stared at her. Silent, brooding, calculating.
Sweat trickling down the sides of his face.
He looked at her sides, searching for the gun.
Next he looked at her hands, as if her teeth weren’t enough of a weapon to deter him.
He was calculating his chances of success if he attacked her. Stupid fool.
Finally he spoke, “Listen, she doesn’t know anything. My grandfather told me stories when I was a kid about waters in the mountains that were meant to heal or some shit. But it’s all made-up. It’s a fucking fairy tale. If it was true, he’d still be alive.”
“I’m sure it’s something you would have spoken to Jane about.”
His jaw clenched so tight she thought he might snap his yellowed teeth. “It’s not. Do you repeat your childhood fairy tales?”
She flexed her fingers, cracking them.
His shoulders twitched at the sound. He looked nervously at the door, like he was considering making an escape, or he was expecting someone to rush in and save him.
“Where’s the book?” she kept her voice measured and calm.
He blew out a short, bitter laugh and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “If there is a book, then I don’t know anything about it.”
She studied his face, she couldn’t read minds, but she’d learned how to read people’s reactions when they lied. He was angry, yet suitably afraid. He did not look away when he spoke or shift in his seat, no involuntary twitches, he was telling the truth. At least he’d saved her the search.
Still, he was rude. He would need to be taught a lesson.