Crack the Spine, page 7
Body funk burned Kendall’s nostrils. She shallowed her breathing and started to edge farther away, then thought better of it and kept her hands to herself.
Two fists came into view as they punched Jian in the gut. Jian stumbled back onto the garbage bags. Hobbling forward, the madman ripped a nail board out of his thigh and levitated it over Jian.
“No!” Kendall yelled, snatching the edge of the board.
Thankfully, Leif struck at the same time, bringing his machete down onto the man’s shoulder. He yanked his weapon free and readied another blow as Kendall caught the board. She didn’t see where the machete landed as she slung the board away.
A gunshot made her jump.
The man fell into a sanguine clump on the floor.
Jian got to his feet. “What the fuck?” he yelled. “Holy shit! What the fuck? What was that?”
“He is human,” Leif said, retracting his machete.
That made it worse. Unwilling to see the gore on the floor, Kendall gently nudged Leif forward and tottered by. She shuffled as safely as she could without letting her vision land on anything longer than it had to. But the clump of long hair in the hallway required her to see the skull attached to it as she stepped over the slick mess. Sour spit warned her of what was coming. She all but ran out the front door and vomited on the lawn. Spitting, she brushed her braids away from her face until Jian held them back for her. Focused on breathing the fresh air, she calmed her nerves, though her hands still shook.
Sirens rang out, not far away.
Kendall stood up straight and got out her phone. She texted Marcélite, Cops are coming. We need help.
The sirens grew louder.
“Jian,” Leif said from the porch. “Give the white man the gun.”
Chapter 7: A Misunderstanding
From the solitude of a police cruiser that stank of previous offenders, Kendall observed the red and blue lights reflecting off the neighborhood’s windows. The cops barked orders at the onlookers. Sirens cut off as another pair of patrol cars arrived. She couldn’t see Leif or Jian. Prior to being separated into vehicles, they had done everything they could to deescalate the situation by leaving the weapons on the porch and sitting on the curb until the police arrived. Leif had even removed his bloody shirt. Did she still eat asphalt with a knee between her shoulder blades? Sure. Were the cuffs painfully tight? Absolutely. Did her vision shake because her heart would not stop thundering? She closed her eyes and laid her head back against the seat. She felt small and not small enough. It could have been worse.
Steps scratched the asphalt outside her door, emphasizing it wasn’t over. The noise from the bystanders asking questions grew louder as a buzzcut officer opened the driver’s side door and got into his seat. He had her license fastened to his clipboard. As he checked his watch, it slipped down, revealing a pale tan line. They sat with a wall of mesh and silence between them as he daubed the end of his pen on his tongue and began writing down her information.
“My name is Officer Johnson, Miss Blake. You wanna tell me what happened in there?”
“As we said—”
“Don’t start with the disrespect, now.”
Tempted to ask if they should wait for the good cop to arrive, Kendall bit her tongue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
He studied her through his sunglasses in the rearview mirror. “The caller said she saw a black woman with a gun go into the house. Then she heard gunfire. We’ve got more than one body in there.”
“I didn’t have a gun. I had a Taser, which I lost in the garbage in the back room. It’s still in there.”
“The Glock 19 we found on the porch is registered to your name.”
“Yes.”
“But you weren’t carrying it?”
She refused to step into that trap without a lawyer. Even with one, the police were a hazard. Beyond the chance of dealing with a high school bully who had decided to take his skills and possible white supremacy to a professional level, you ran the risk of interacting with an officer who may not even be human. For the most part, their leadership controlled them locally, which meant an elected sheriff or a random chief could fill their protect-and-serve club with packs of nonhumans. And would. There were good ones too. Humans and sometimes liberals to boot. But you’d never know if you’d trusted the wrong one until it was too late.
“Someone hired us, Wayward Investigations, to look into the disappearance of Tara Lipscomb. Five-foot-seven. Strawberry-blonde curls. She disappeared—”
“Let’s focus on one thing at a time here.”
A man squealed, howled, and squealed again. On the porch, one of the officers spun his arms as he hopped outside without putting weight on the board affixed to his shoe. Definitely human.
“You got out of your vehicle, went to the house, then what?”
“We knocked. When no one answered, we tried the door. It was unlocked.”
“Was it open?”
“No. We opened it to yell inside. That’s when—”
“Who yelled?”
“Jian.”
“That’s the Oriental one?”
Kendall closed her eyes, wondering if she should just lawyer up now. “Jian Yang. He’s Chinese American, yes.”
“Uh-huh. And what’s your relationship to him?”
“He, Mr. Pederson, and I are colleagues. We were investigating the disappearance of Tara Lipscomb.”
“Well, we’ll see about that.”
“Asshole,” Marcélite’s voice said. Kendall opened her eyes to find Marcélite seated next to her. The cop didn’t notice a thing. Her smile was a comfort. “Don’t worry. Help is on the way.” Marcélite’s projected form vanished.
“I’m going to stop talking until my lawyer is present.”
The cop lowered his clipboard and threw her an annoyed glare in the mirror. “You sure that’s the best idea? We haven’t arrested you yet. We’re just having a conversation here. Tell me about this Tara Lipscomb person you’re looking for. Maybe I can help you find her.”
Out the back glass, Kendall spotted a train of SUVs racing toward them, their white lights flashing. The cavalcade filled the street around the squad cars. Men and women in FBI jackets and suits leaped out to intercept the officers protecting their media-worthy find.
A blonde woman in her forties came directly toward them, wearing an FBI tactical vest. She grinned at Kendall, then knocked on Officer Johnson’s window.
He scoffed quietly, then opened his door and stepped out. “Ma’am.”
“Agent McCaskill,” she said firmly. “Your Chief Barnham called our office and suggested there may be victims inside from neighboring states. He has invited us—”
“We don’t know that for sure yet. We’re still getting the story of what happened here.”
“Whoa!” she said, putting her hand toward him. “Hold still. You’ve got a bee right . . .” She put her hand to the cop’s neck and muttered something under her breath. A glow flashed under her touch and surged into him, illuminating the veins in his neck for a split second before fading altogether. Agent McCaskill caught the cop’s clipboard as it fell. Only then did Kendall notice the gold ring with a large purple gem on the agent’s finger. Blank-faced and glossy-eyed, the cop stood at attention. “Miss Blake,” she said, opening Kendall’s door, “let’s get those cuffs off you.”
Kendall got out and turned around. The cuffs let go, providing instant relief. She rubbed her wrists and feared they might bruise. “Who are you?”
“One sec.” Agent McCaskill pocketed the handcuffs. To the officer, she commanded, “Turn off your body camera and give it to me.” He did so without question. “Forget everything you have done or seen in the past forty-five minutes.” She picked up the baggie of evidence containing Kendall’s property off the trunk and gave it back to her with her license. “There’s a major gas leak in the area, Officer Johnson. Evacuate a four-by-four-block grid around this house immediately and do not venture back inside that zone until you’ve received the all-clear. I want you to go on foot.”
Without a word, Officer Johnson hurried off with the lights still flashing on his car. The other officers were already making their way door-to-door, creating a panic among the serial killer’s neighbors as they shooed them away and out of their homes.
“Lyceum?” Kendall asked. The woman’s nod was slight enough to be deniable. “Marcélite called in her favor.” Kendall said it more to herself than the agent, who didn’t acknowledge the statement.
Agent McCaskill’s hazel-eyed gaze shifted to their van. “This place is going to burn once the evidence has been collected and bodies have been identified. Now would be the perfect time to await your liaison in the safety of your warehouse.” Not a suggestion. She left Kendall there in the road.
“We were looking for someone,” Kendall said, following her. “Tara Lipscomb.”
The Lyceum’s agent looked from the property back to Kendall and stopped. She gave a sorrowful nod. “If we find her, we’ll let you know.”
“Thank you. Be careful in there. There are booby traps all over that place.”
Agent McCaskill resumed her stride away from her. “This is not our first run-in with the Grunch, Miss Blake. Goodbye now.” She joined her colleagues, who had begun unloading their tools on the porch, and chucked Officer Johnson’s clipboard into an empty bin. Clear plastic tubs full of wallets and purses were being loaded into the Lyceum’s vehicles.
“The Grunch?” Kendall repeated as Leif neared her with a suspicious, almost accusatory, countenance for the agents.
“Let us ask Marcélite.”
“My people,” Jian called. He stood in front of the van and gestured for them to join him. “No one has to tell me to get the fuck away from the police twice.” He continued gesturing until they reached him.
Kendall opened the baggy with her possessions and tossed Jian the keys. “I’m a little shaky. Do you mind driving?”
Putting his arm around her, Jian hugged her against his side. He patted her arm twice and released her. “Driving is my pleasure.”
As she rounded the van to the sliding side door, she locked eyes with the old woman she had seen earlier, the one who had called the police on the black woman with a gun. The old biddy was loading her car and preparing to evacuate. “Real shame about the gas leak,” Kendall shouted to her. “We probably could have contained it if someone hadn’t created extra fuss by calling the police. Oh, well. You have a good day! Hope your house doesn’t explode.” None of it was true or a genuine concern. But giving the woman a little dread in return made her feel better. She climbed into the van and slid the door closed before muttering, “Choice words. Choice words.”
On their way out of the neighborhood, three police officers shouted a warning about a gas leak to them. One of them chased them with the news all the way to the boundary the Lyceum had set for the evacuation. Her shoulders stayed tense until they had left all the flashing lights behind. They were fully in the clear regarding the police. The Lyceum, on the other hand, was a different matter.
She and Leif searched online for more information on the Grunch. The attempt proved fruitless. Even unfiltered, the Scalp site returned no results. “Maybe he really was human.” Kendall put her phone down and stared at nothing in particular through the window. “The worst part is our search for Tara is back to square one.” Hearing herself, she rubbed her eyes. “I don’t mean that to sound callous. And I’m glad that thing was put down. He killed so many people.” With that many victims to sort through, they may not receive an update from the Lyceum until tomorrow.
Jian raised his thumb from the steering wheel. “Tara could be one of them, you know?”
Kendall supervised his merge onto the highway while considering it. “Maybe. But I doubt it. I hope for her sake she wasn’t. If that’s not a darker fate to hope for.”
“For now,” Leif said, “we wait and see what they claim they find. We shower and wait and see what they find.”
“Dude, you’re so nasty you don’t even have to call dibs. If you want, I’ll hose you down in the parking lot.”
Leif looked himself over. Luckily, the cuts he had received from the razor blades didn’t appear long or deep. Yet the Grunch’s blood speckled and stained him from head to toe. Kendall crinkled her nose at the thought of it mixing with Leif’s blood, which soured her mouth again. He noticed her disgust. “Ja, Jian. Takk.”
“No worries, man. Diego can grab his camera. We’ll make a calendar out of it.” He flicked on the blinker. “Always be selling.”
Chapter 8: Lyceum Liaison
Cleaned and closer to calm, Kendall rejoined the others in the kitchen and accepted a glass of cabernet sauvignon from Marcélite. “Thank you.” Her glass clinked Leif’s mug on her way to the table. She owed him and Jian. Not that she wanted to think about what had happened earlier—if she could stop, she would! The less she thought about the Grunch, the more it felt like a fever dream. Yet as it replayed in her mind, she realized how little help she had been. That epiphany she would carry with her longer than the horror. Of that, she was certain. She had pulled her weight on every team she had ever been on; she wouldn’t fall to the back of the pack now.
Her behavior wasn’t the only thing she didn’t recognize. The warehouse they returned to was anything but shabby. White linen fabric hung between the rafters and cascaded down to the molding edging the gray slate floor. No cold concrete here. Red brick walls had replaced the painted cinderblocks. From their drywalled rooms to beyond the curtains blocking the glow lights, an illusion persisted.
Kendall set her glass down on the mahogany dining table, next to the lit candles and bowls of potpourri spreading lavender and vanilla notes. The gentrified warehouses in the neighborhood could only wish they had the blue-veined marble counters Leif leaned against. Marcélite may have gone a little overboard with this glamour. On the rare event they had company, Frankie in this case, there was one golden rule beyond respect: Don’t touch anything you know is fake. If someone were to, say, throw a basketball where the wall now sloped to enclose their bedrooms, the ball would fall through it. It wouldn’t break the spell as much as call out Marcélite for masquerading. And anyone who grew up with a Southern mother knew that was a line you only got to cross once.
When it came to Jian, he wasn’t so much as allowed to stand on a rug. So, he stood fifteen feet away from the table and paced with an Irish stout in his hand. If he got bored, he’d just leave and lay his hands on his Trans Am, as usual. He didn’t mind it, really. They only had five chairs; someone had to stand.
Their guest of honor, however, didn’t seem fazed by the décor in the least, so long as the Wi-Fi held up. Kendall certainly felt more at ease with her addiction to Scalp after observing how frequently Frankie refreshed the site for new updates. Between her adventures into the dark web and Diego’s assault of questions and gossip, her surroundings had to be the last thing on her mind.
Three solid bangs came from the back door and rattled the metal blinds.
Kendall answered it. The brunet suit at the door already had his FBI badge out for display. Attractive and aware of that fact, he tried to charm her with a smile. Ignoring that, she leaned closer to read his badge. “Jamie Guidry.” She guessed Agent Guidry’s age to be in the early thirties range, a guess based on the baby face that he had just begun to chisel out. She waved out her arm and bid him entry.
The others stood until Marcélite gestured to the empty chair. “Please—”
Leif swooped into the chair. Normally gallant to all, it was strange to see him comfortable in discourtesy. He pulled out his phone. After a few taps, he laid it on the table and slid it closer to Agent Guidry at the end of the table. Recording flashed on the screen as the timer counted up.
“I’m fine standing, thank you.” When he realized Jian was standing too, he glanced around at their swank abode and smirked to himself. Not as dumb as he looked, then. He put his hand to his chest. “I’m Agent Guidry from the Lyceum. It’s my—”
“Did you find Tara?” Frankie asked.
His lips thinned into an apologetic frown. “We do not have any information on Tara Lipscomb’s disappearance, I’m afraid.” At that point, his eyes ran over all of them, counting, and went back to Frankie, the one the Lyceum was least likely to have a file on. Not a file associated with the rest of them anyway.
“So, what was that guy?” Kendall asked.
“The Grunch? Human.”
Kendall closed her eyes just to force the words out. “He ate people. How can someone who does that be human? What the hell was he really?”
“Don’t give humans too much credit, Miss Blake. Albeit this guy was as far from human as you can get and still qualify as one of us.” He got out his phone and raised it. The shutter sounded. He chuckled. “Oops. Sorry. That’s not the app I needed. But yes . . . the Grunch. It’s believed they’re descended from lost French colonists who arrived in present-day Louisiana around five hundred years ago. Their removal from society caused them to evolve and devolve in peculiar ways.” He turned the phone around to display another inbred prince of the deep swamp. “Technically considered human because they can still breed with us—”
“Ew,” Diego said.
“Indeed. They answer to a queen.” He kept scrolling until he showed them the bloated corpse of an overweight, pale-skinned troll that you might see bargain hunting in the Walmart bakery at 3 a.m. “Each member of the clan performs a specific and exclusive function. How they attain that role and the abilities associated with it are still a mystery.” He turned off his phone. His nerd flag lowered as his demeanor grew more rigid. “While that’s all fascinating, I have some rather dire news to share with you. The Grunch are very hive-minded and powerful with magic. We don’t know why the Grunch you fought earlier left his clan and settled smack dab in the center of Chalmette, but we do know they sense when one of their own passes. And they are retaliatory.
