Chapter 6 #3
I nodded. I’d known they were going to ask me to do this, although I wasn’t particularly happy that they were asking me to do it now.
“Will Ward be back today?” Hart asked.
I shook my head. “No. I can put you in tomorrow or Wednesday, once we’re done here.”
“Tomorrow would better,” Raj said, and I was grateful he was remaining professional, although he hadn’t stopped staring at me as though he might be able to tell whether or not I was going to overextend myself.
“Put us on,” Hart said, “but I’m calling Ward’s ass when we’re done to see if he’ll let us invade the toddler-house or some shit.”
Raj looked startled. “We shouldn’t—”
Hart rolled his lavender eyes again. “I’m not going to literally invade his house, Tony. But if he says we can come do it tonight, that would be better, yeah?”
Raj nodded. “It would.”
Hart shrugged. “Then I’ll text him.” Those eyes turned back to me. “When we’re done here. Might give us a better sense of what we need from these poor fuckers, anyway.”
“Some amount of decorum would be appreciated for the dead, Hart,” Raj grumbled.
Hart shrugged again. “Not like I’d say that in front of family, Jesus, Raj.”
Raj huffed a little. “Still,” he replied, but that seemed to be the end of it, since he turned to me. “Are you ready?”
I was glad he hadn’t asked if I was sure I’d be okay, or sure I wanted to do this. Just was I ready.
“Yes,” I replied, settling at the table.
Raj and Hart both sat down, Raj putting the satchel on the table’s surface, pulling back the flap so that he could remove two evidence bags.
The first was small, and held a cigarette butt.
The second was larger, containing a sizable shard of curved yellow-orange plastic, presumably from a blinker.
I knew what both of them contained, although I hadn’t touched the cigarette butt in… six months.
“Which one do you want to start with, kid?” Hart asked me.
I gestured toward the cigarette.
Raj opened the evidence bag and shook the butt out onto the table’s surface in front of me. I drew in a deep breath, then reached out and picked it up between my thumb and forefinger, keeping my psychic barriers fully in place.
I looked between Raj and Hart. “What do you want from this?” I asked them.
Hart blinked. “You’re not reading it?”
“Not yet,” I replied. I was making a point. It was probably childish of me to demonstrate my ability to block out memories until I wanted them, but I wanted it to be clear to both of them that I wasn’t beholden to my abilities—they were beholden to me.
I could feel Raj’s eyes on me, and I wasn’t sure if he was disapproving because he knew why I was doing it and didn’t approve, or if he simply didn’t approve of me expending the energy it took to block psychic impressions unnecessarily.
Hart glanced over at him, his expression uncertain, although I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t have an answer for my question, or if he was sensing the tension between us.
“Anything you can give us,” he answered, when Raj didn’t.
I nodded once, letting my eyes close and the memories wash through me. I’d started narrating what I read, the strange, trance-like state of doing a reading making it feel almost like automatic speech, the words running through me rather than being produced by conscious choices.
As I started to speak, I heard them both suck in surprised breaths, but I kept going.
He pulled a cigarette out of the pack sitting in the cup-holder, seething. How dare that fucking freak touch him? It wasn’t right, having monsters walking around like they were just like everybody else. When anyone could see that they’d been cursed by God for their sins.
His hand trembled a little as he held a lighter to the end of the cigarette, and he almost swerved into the oncoming lane, hissing a curse out between his teeth and around the end of the cigarette. But he righted the SUV, still stalking behind his quarry.
The faun looked back, and he wasn’t sure if the creature knew he was being followed or if he was just paranoid. Or twitchy. He thought he’d been pretty stealthy, going back to the SUV. He was hanging back a little. Not directly behind. There was another car—a red sedan—between them.
The faun took a corner, and the sedan didn’t. He followed the Nid, but slowed even more. This street was empty except for him and the monster.
It was like a sign from God. Adrenaline surged through him, pushing the gas pedal closer to the floor, almost as though it had a mind of its own. As though the leg and the foot attached to it pressing the pedal down didn’t belong to him. Like it belonged to a higher power.
He liked that idea.
That he was doing the work of a higher authority.
A God who wanted to rid the world of the corruption that was these fucking Nids. Inhuman monsters.
He’d listened to the word of God. Been a church-going, God-fearing Christian his whole life.
Had faith. In God, in Jesus, in humanity.
And he’d never gotten sick from this magical corruption.
Not once. Even though as soon as he’d realized what it was, he’d stopped wearing a mask.
Stopped hiding his face from the judgment of God.
God had chosen him. Had been merciful to the righteous. Kept him safe.
He wasn’t going to turn into a monster. Not him.
But he worried for his kids. Six and ten years old, and living in a world of the corrupt. They didn’t understand. Not yet. Didn’t know enough to keep away from those who had been marked by sin. The mark of Cain, Preacher Dale called it.
He’d warned them.
But then Chastity had gone and played with some filthy fucking Nid-spawn. Fallen and scraped her knee.
And the fucking teacher had said it wasn’t the Nid-spawn’s fault. That kids were just kids. They fell. Scraped their knees.
But he knew the little demon had pushed her.
Tried to corrupt her.
He took a long drag from his cigarette, savoring the flavor of the tobacco, his heart pounding, the headlights focusing just to the left of the hunched figure, its demon-hooves glinting in the light.
Just like the little Nid-spawn that had pushed Chastity.
Not the same one, of course. That one had been little. This was a big one.
He didn’t know the monster, but he knew him. It. Knew that it was sinful. Corrupt. It had to be, or God wouldn’t have made it in the shape of the devil.
It had bumped against him as it left the ATM, and his skin had crawled, his body’s revulsion telling him just how evil it really was.
So he’d gotten out of the line—because money was a sign of greed—and followed, getting back into his SUV where he’d stopped it by the curb, following the unnatural path the demon took through the city streets, waiting for his chance.
It looked back over its shoulder, then picked up the pace.
He grinned, his teeth biting down on the end of the cigarette, his blood thrumming with righteous judgment.
He saw the creature turning, heading for an alleyway, and spun the wheel—
I set the butt down on the table, slowly, deliberately, swallowing to ease the dryness in my throat from the constant stream of speech. “I’m not sure what happened then,” I said. “But the memories stop. I assume the cigarette fell out of his mouth.”
I looked up, finding both of them staring at me, Hart’s mouth slightly open.
“Jeeeesus fuck, kid,” he said.
I blinked. “What?” I asked, confused.
Raj shifted. “I know you’ve been working on your… readings,” he said softly. “But I didn’t realize you could narrate them now.”
Ah. I nodded. “I’ve been working on it,” I replied. “I find it’s both more detailed and probably accurate, and that way I only have to go through it once, if it’s being recorded.”
Hart’s ears turned pink. “I, uh, didn’t record that,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I replied. “I did.”
“You did?” Raj repeated.
I nodded. “Ward has a recorder in here for séances, so that clients can’t make up what happened or make accusations of inaccuracy.” I pointed to a corner. “It’s closed-circuit, so it doesn’t leave the office, but I hit the recording switch by the door on the way in.”
Raj looked slightly alarmed. “You can’t just do that for federal cases,” he objected.
I looked mildly back at him. “We can, actually,” I replied.
“It’s in the contract Ward signed with the FBI that we’re allowed to record all victim interviews and consultations with Beyond the Veil staff.
” I knew it probably sounded like I was being rude, but I also knew I was right.
Ward and Mason had made sure that was in the contract, to protect the company in case anything ever happened.
I’d asked what could happen, and Mason had looked grim. “We can’t trust that the same people we’re working with now will always be there or that their employers might not be influenced to silence evidence that makes them look bad,” he’d said.
I wasn’t going to say that, specifically, to Raj and Hart, though.
Raj still looked offended. Or maybe hurt.
Hart snorted, and his expression was amused. “Fucking good for him,” he said.
Raj looked over at him. “Whose side are you on, here?” he demanded.
Hart shrugged. “Not the side that has a bunch of dickbags passing laws to make our existence illegal,” he replied pointedly.
Raj blinked, emotions that I couldn’t quite identify flickering over his face. “I—” His features settled in a frown. “I don’t like it,” he said slowly. “But I—” A sigh. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.” He clearly wasn’t happy, though.
“Do you want me to read the headlight now?” I asked. I really didn’t want to, but I knew it was important, so I would. That was, according to Ward at least, what adults did. Things we didn’t want to do, but which were important.
I didn’t want to re-experience the elf’s death, but if it would help catch his killer, then that’s what I was going to do.
Raj didn’t answer my question with words, but he opened the bag, allowing the large fragment of yellow-orange plastic to rattle across a few inches of the surface of the table.
I drew in a long breath, steadying myself.