Blood Banked, page 11
His eyes widened.
Behind the evergreens, the lodge blazed with light. Inside lights. Outside lights. Every light in the place. The harsh, yellow-white illumination washed out the stars up above and threw everything below into such sharp relief that even the lush, spring growth seemed manufactured. The shadows under the distant trees were now solid, impenetrable sheets of darkness.
“Well, at least Ontario Hydro’s glad he’s here.” Shaking his head in disbelief, Mike returned to his surveillance.
Too far away for the light to reach it, the lake threw up shimmering reflections of the stars and lapped gently against the shore.
*
Finally back on the paved road, Vicki unclenched her teeth and followed the southern edge of the lake toward the village. With nothing between the passenger side of the van and the water but a whitewashed guard rail and a few tumbled rocks, it was easy enough to look out the window and pretend she was driving on the lake itself. When the shoulder widened into a small parking area and a boat ramp, she pulled over and shut off the van.
The water moved inside its narrow channel like liquid darkness, opaque and mysterious. The part of the night that belonged to her, ended at the water’s edge.
“Not the way it’s supposed to work,” she muttered, getting out of the van and walking down the boat ramp. Up close, she could see through four or five inches of liquid to a stony bottom and the broken shells of fresh-water clams, but beyond that, it was hard not to believe she couldn’t just walk across to the other side.
The ubiquitous spring chorus of frogs suddenly fell silent, drawing Vicki’s attention around to a marshy cove off to her right. The silence was so complete she thought she could hear a half a hundred tiny amphibian hearts beating. One. Two…
“Hey, there.”
She’d spun around and taken a step out into the lake before her brain caught up with her reaction. The feel of cold water filling her hiking boots brought her back to herself, and she damped the Hunter in her eyes before the man in the canoe had time to realize his danger.
Paddle in the water, holding the canoe in place, he nodded down at Vicki’s feet. “You don’t want to be doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Wadding at night. You’re going to want to see where you’re going, old Nepeakea drops off fast.” He jerked his head back toward the silvered darkness. “Even the ministry boys couldn’t tell you how deep she is in the middle. She’s got so much loose mud on the bottom, it kept throwing back their sonar readings.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Well, I’m not wading, that’s for sure.”
“Or answering my question,” Vicki muttered, stepping back out on the shore. Wet feet making her less than happy, she half hoped for another smart ass comment.
“I often canoe at night. I like the quiet.” He grinned in at her, clearly believing he was too far away and there was too little light for her to see the appraisal that went with it. “You must be that investigator from Toronto. I saw your van when I was up at the lodge today.”
“You must be Frank Patton. You’ve changed your boat.”
“Can’t be quiet in a 50-horsepower Evinrude, can I? You going in to see Mary Joseph?”
“No. I was going in to see Anne Kellough.”
“Second house past the stop sign on the right. Little yellow bungalow with a carport.” He slid backward so quietly even Vicki wouldn’t have known he was moving had she not been watching him. He handled the big aluminum canoe with practised ease. “I’d offer you a lift, but I’m sure you’re in a hurry.”
Vicki smiled. “Thanks anyway.” Her eyes silvered. “Maybe another time.”
She was still smiling as she got into the van. Out on the lake, Frank Patton splashed about trying to retrieve the canoe paddle that had dropped from nerveless fingers.
*
“Frankly, I hate the little bastard, but there’s no law against that.” Anne Kellough pulled her sweater tighter and leaned back against the porch railing. “He’s the one who set the health department on me you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh, yeah. He came up here about three months before it happened looking for land, and he wanted mine. I wouldn’t sell it to him, so he figured out a way to take it.” Anger quickened her breathing and flared her nostrils. “He as much as told me, after it was all over, with that big shit-eating grin and his, ‘Rough, luck, Ms. Kellough, too bad the banks can’t be more forgiving.’ The patronizing asshole.” Eyes narrowed, she glared at Vicki. “And you know what really pisses me off? I used to rent the lodge out to people who needed a little silence in their lives; you know, so they could maybe hear what was going on inside their heads. If Stuart Gordon has his way, there won’t be any silence and the place’ll be awash in brand names and expensive dental work.”
“If Stuart Gordon has his way?” Vicki repeated, brows rising.
“Well, it’s not built yet, is it?”
“He has all the paperwork filed; what’s going to stop him?”
The other woman picked at a flake of paint, her whole attention focused on lifting it from the railing. Just when Vicki felt she’d have to ask again, Anne looked up and out toward the dark waters of the lake. “That’s the question, isn’t it,” she said softly, brushing her hair back off her face.
The lake seemed no different to Vicki than it ever had. About to suggest that the question acquire an answer, she suddenly frowned. “What happened to your hand? That looks like an acid burn.”
“It is.” Anne turned her arm so that the burn was more clearly visible to them both. “Thanks to Stuart fucking Gordon, I couldn’t afford to take my car in to the garage and I had to change the battery myself. I thought I was being careful…” She shrugged.
*
“A new battery, eh? Afraid I can’t help you, miss.” Ken, owner of Ken’s Garage and Auto Body, pressed one knee against the side of the van and leaned, letting it take his weight as he filled the tank. “But if you’re not in a hurry I can go into Bigwood tomorrow and get you one.” Before Vicki could speak, he went on. “No wait, tomorrow’s Sunday, place’ll be closed. Closed Monday too seeing as how it’s Victoria Day.” He shrugged and smiled. “I’ll be open, but that won’t get you a battery.”
“It doesn’t have to be a new one. I just want to make sure that when I turn her off on the way home I can get her started again.” Leaning back against the closed driver’s- side door, she gestured into the work bay where a small pile of old batteries had been more or less stacked against the back wall. “What about one of them?”
Ken turned, peered, and shook his head. “Damn but you’ve got good eyes, miss. It’s dark as bloody pitch in there.”
“Thank you.”
“‘None of them batteries will do you any good, though, ’cause I drained them all a couple of days ago. They’re just too dangerous, eh? You know, if kids get poking around?” He glanced over at the gas pump and carefully squirted the total up to an even thirty-two dollars. “You’re that investigator working up at the lodge, aren’t you?” he asked as he pushed the bills she handed him into a greasy pocket and counted out three loonies in change. “Trying to lay the spirit?”
“Trying to catch whoever vandalized Stuart Gordon’s car.”
“He, uh, get that fixed, then?”
“Good as new.” Vicki opened the van door and paused, one foot up on the running board. “I take it he didn’t get it fixed here?”
“Here?” The slightly worried expression on Ken’s broad face vanished to be replaced by a curled lip and narrowed eyes. “My gas isn’t good enough for that pissant. He’s planning to put his own tanks in if he gets that god-damned yuppie resort built.”
“If?”
Much as Anne Kellough had, he glanced toward the lake. “If.”
Two five gallon glass jars sitting outside the office caught Vicki’s eye. The lids were off, and it looked very much as though they were airing out. “I haven’t seen jars like that in years,” she said, pointing. “I don’t suppose you want to sell them?”
Ken turned to follow her finger. “Can’t. They belong to my cousin. I just borrowed them, eh? Her kids were supposed to come and get them, but hey, you know kids.”
According to call-me-Stuart, the village was no place to raise kids.
Glass jars would be handy for transporting acid mixed with fish bits.
And where would they have gotten the fish, she wondered, pulling carefully out of the gas station. Maybe from one of the boys at the hunting and fishing camp.
*
Pete Wegler stood in the door of his trailer, a slightly confused look on his face. “Do I know you?”
Vicki smiled. “Not yet. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
*
Ten to twelve. The lights were still on at the lodge. Mike stood, stretched, and wondered how much longer Vicki was going to be. Surely everyone in Dulvie’s asleep by now.
Maybe she stopped for a bite to eat.
The second thought followed the first too quickly for him to prevent it, so he ignored it instead. Turning his back on the lodge, he sat down and stared out at the lake. Water looked almost secretive at night, he decided as his eyes readjusted to the darkness.
In his business, secretive meant guilty.
“And if Stuart Gordon has gotten a protective spirit pissed off enough to kill, what then?” he wondered aloud, glancing down at his watch.
Midnight.
Which meant absolutely nothing to that ever-expanding catalogue of things that went bump in the night. Experience had taught him that the so-called supernatural was just about as likely to attack at two in the afternoon as at midnight, but he couldn’t not react to the knowledge that he was as far from the dubious safety of daylight as he was able to get.
Even the night seemed affected.
Waiting…
A breeze blew in off the lake, and the hair lifted on both his arms.
Waiting for something to happen.
About fifteen feet from shore, a fish broke through the surface of the water like Alice going the wrong way through the looking glass. A glistening, grey tube as big around as Mike’s biceps whipped up after it. Teeth, or claws inside the tube’s opening sank into the fish, and together they finished the arc of the leap. A hump, the same glistening grey, slid up and back into the water, followed by what could only have been the propelling beat of a flat tail. From teeth to tail, the whole thing had to be at least nine feet long.
“Jesus H. Christ.” He took a deep breath and added, “On crutches.”
*
“I’m telling you, Vicki, I saw the spirit of the lake manifest.”
“You saw something eat a fish.” Vicki stared out at the water, but saw only the reflection of a thousand stars. “You probably saw a bigger fish eat a fish. A long, narrow pike leaping up after a nice fat bass.”
About to deny he’d seen any such thing, Mike suddenly frowned. “How do you know souch much about fish?”
“I had a little talk with Pete Wegler tonight. He provided the fish for the acid bath, provided by Ken the garageman, in glass jars provided by Ken’s cousin, Kathy Boomhower—the mother who went much beyond name-calling with our boy Stuart. Anne Kellough did the deed—she’s convinced call-me-Stuart called in the Ministry of Health to get his hands on the property—having been transported quietly to the site in Frank Patton’s canoe.” She grinned. “I feel like Hercule Poirot on the Orient Express.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m feeling a lot more Stephen King than Agatha Christie.”
Sobering, Vicki laid her hand on the barricade of his crossed arms and studied his face. “You’re really freaked by this, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know exactly what I saw, but I didn’t see a fish get eaten by another fish.”
The muscles under her hand were rigid, and he stared past her, out at the lake. “Mike, what is it?”
“I told you, Vicki. I don’t know exactly what I saw.” In spite of everything, he still liked his world defined. Reluctantly transferring his gaze to the pale oval of her upturned face, he sighed. “How much, if any, of this do you want me to tell Mr. Gordon tomorrow?”
“How about none? I’ll tell him myself after sunset.”
“Fine. It’s late. I’m turning in. I assume you’ll be staking out the parking lot for the rest of the night.”
“What for? I guarantee the vengeful spirits won’t be back.” Her voice suggested that, in a direct, one-on-one confrontation, a vengeful spirit wouldn’t stand a chance. Mike remembered the thing that rose up out of the lake and wasn’t so sure.
“That doesn’t matter, you promised twenty-four- hour protection.”
“Yeah, but…” His expression told her that if she wasn’t going to stay, he would. “Fine, I’ll watch the car. Happy?”
“That you’re doing what you said you were going to do? Ecstatic.” Mike unfolded his arms, pulled her close enough to kiss the frown lines between her brows, and headed for the lodge. She had a little talk with Pete Wegler, my ass. He knew Vicki had to feed off others, but he didn’t have to like it.
*
Should never have mentioned Pete Wegler. Vicki settled down on the rock, which was still warm from Mike’s body heat, and tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the darkness of the lake. When something rustled in the underbrush bordering the parking lot, she hissed without turning her head. The rustling moved away with considerably more speed than it had used to arrive. The secrets of the lake continued to elude her.
“This isn’t mysterious, it’s irritating.”
*
As Mike wandered around the lodge, turning off lights, he could hear Stuart Gordon snoring through the door of one of the two main-floor bedrooms. In the few hours he’d been outside, the other man had managed to leave a trail of debris from one end of the place to the other. On top of that, he’d used up the last of the toilet paper on the roll and hadn’t replaced it, he’d put the almost empty coffee pot back on the coffee maker with the machine still on so that the dregs had baked onto the glass, and he’d eaten a piece of Mike’s chicken, tossing the gnawed bone back into the bucket. Mike didn’t mind him eating the piece of chicken, but the last thing he wanted was Stuart Gordon’s spit over the rest of the bird.
Dropping the bone into the garbage, he noticed a crumpled piece of paper and fished it out. Apparently, the resort was destined to grow beyond its current boundaries. Destined to grow all the way around the lake, devouring Dulvie as it went.
“Which would put Stuart Gordon’s spit all over the rest of the area.”
*
Bored with watching the lake and frightening off the local wildlife, Vicki pressed her nose against the window of call-me-Stuart’s car and clicked her tongue at the dashboard full of electronic displays, willing to bet he didn’t have the slightest idea of what most of them meant.
“Probably has a trouble light if his air freshener needs…. hello.”
Tucked under the passenger seat was the unmistakable edge of a lap top.
“And how much to you want to bet this thing’ll scream bloody blue murder if I try and jimmy the door.” Turning toward the now dark lodge, she listened to the sound of two heartbeats. To the slow, regular sound that told her both men were deeply asleep.
*
Call-me-Stuart slept on his back with one hand flung over his head and a slight smile on his thin face. Vicki watched the pulse beat in his throat for a moment. She’d been assured that, if necessary, she could feed off lower lifeforms—pigeons, rats, developers—but she was just as glad she’d taken the edge off the Hunger down in the village. Scooping up his car keys, she went out of the room as silently as she’d come in.
*
Mike woke to a decent voice belting out a Beatles tune and came downstairs just as Stuart came out of the bathroom, finger-combing damp hair.
“Good morning, Mike. Can I assume no vengeful spirits of Lake Nepeakea trashed my car in the night?”
“You can.”
“Good. Good. Oh, by the way…” His smile could have sold attitude to Americans. “…I’ve used all the hot water.”
*
“I guess it’s true what they say about so many of our boys in blue.”
“And what’s that?” Mike growled, fortified by two cups of coffee made only slightly bitter by the burned carafe.
“Well, you know, Mike.” Grinning broadly, the developer mimed tipping a bottle to his lips. “I mean, if you can drink that vile brew, you’ve certainly got a drinking problem.” Laughing at his own joke, he headed for the door.
To begin with, they’re not your boys in blue. And then later, you can just fucking well drop dead. You try dealing with the world we deal with for a while, asshole, it’ll chew you up and spit you out. But although his fist closed around his mug tightly enough for it to creak, all he said was, “Where are you going?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’ve got to see a lawyer in Bigwood today. Yes, I know what you’re going to say, Mike; it’s Sunday. But since this is the last time I’ll be out here for a few weeks, the local legal beagle can see me when I’m available. Just a few loose ends about that nasty business with the surveyor.” He paused, with his hand on the door, voice and manner stripped of all pretensions. “I told them to be sure and finish that part of the shoreline before they quit for the day—I know I’m not, but I feel responsible for that poor woman’s death, and I only wish there was something I could do to make up for it. You can’t make up for someone dying, though, can you, Mike?”
Mike growled something non-committal. Right at the moment, the last thing he wanted to do was think of Stuart Gordon as a decent human being.
“I might not be back until after dark, but hey, that’s when the spirit’s likely to appear, so you won’t need me until then. Right, Mike?” Turning toward the screen where the black flies had settled, waiting for their breakfast to emerge, he shook his head. “The first thing I’m going to do when all this is settled is drain every stream these little blood suckers breed in.”
