16

It wasn’t until the third of December that my opportunity came. Veruca got a call from Lucien that afternoon and left with one of those excuses that meant I didn’t want to know where she was going to be for the next five or six hours. Normally, it might have bothered me that my girlfriend was going off to kill someone. Today, I just hoped it meant I could finally do some killing of my own.

As soon as she was gone, I made a hurried tour of the apartment to load up my duffel bag: three black candles, a lighter, one of the spear replicas, the Necronomicon, and enough snacks to keep my belly quiet through a weekend camping trip.

When I was satisfied that I had what I needed, I called Duchess Deluce.

“Valente International.”

“Duchess, it’s Fisher. I need a favor.”

She paused for a moment. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fisher?”

“There’s a rest stop on I-90 about 20 miles west of Boston.” I checked the mile marker again before relaying it. “I need it closed down ’til sunrise. Access for me and my car only.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t control the state government, Mr. Fisher. What should I tell the Department of Transportation to accomplish that feat?”

I had to think for a moment. I had assumed Miss Deluce could accomplish it effortlessly. “Chemical leak. Tell them I’m the company inspector.” I paused. “Whatever bribe it takes to get them to keep quiet about it, take it out of my next paycheck.”

“Mr. Valente always insists on paying expenses. This is company business, right?”

I hesitated. It was business, but that didn’t mean I wanted to share what I was up to. If I was right, I didn’t want to tell anyone, ever, under any conditions. “Just checking a lead on the Faceless,” I lied.

“I don’t need to know details, Mr. Fisher,” Duchess chided. “The boss has made it quite clear you report to him and him alone.” I could hear computer keys typing in the background. “In your orientation packet, I gave you two extra employee IDs, Mr. Fisher. One of them is in the name of Richard Dugger. Take that one with you and if anyone asks you for identification, give them that. The rest stop will be all yours ’til noon tomorrow.”

I thanked her, hung up, and fished out the card she had mentioned. The only thing left to do was to decide whether this was really a good idea or not. If I was smart, I would wait until Veruca came home, tell her everything, and go tackle this together. The truth was, I was more afraid of what might happen to her than I was of what might happen to me. I still remembered that prophetic insight when I first looked into her eyes. I would give anything, even my own life, not to be the cause of her death.

I brewed one last cup of coffee to give Duchess time to work out the details, then headed out the door before I could talk myself out of it. The roads out of Boston were strangely deserted that day as Dora and I muscled our way out of town. It was as if the entire city could sense the coming showdown.

The empty roads let me mull things over, putting together again the pieces I had already linked in the past week. It had been a long year for me. I had rung in the New Year just outside of Seattle, worked my way down the West Coast through January and February. In March, I had driven across the southwest, heading east. I had stopped in Oklahoma City in mid-March before heading down to New Orleans. I wondered if I had slept that night and, if I did, what I had dreamt about.

I would have been working at a bar back in the Big Easy when the old woman wrote her curse in April. I understood now where I had gone wrong in the investigation: I had assumed that people’s actions were what mattered. My wrong assumption led to my equally wrong belief that the old woman had called the wendigo. The Eye of Winter knew better: the wendigo had called to the old woman, nurturing her hate, prompting her to free it with her curse. While I was bouncing around the South, playing a renaissance fair wizard or working at the docks, Hungry Winter was gathering its strength and nursing its pups.

With wendigoes as the caller, rather than the called, it was easy to understand what it did after it was killed: it called again. The old woman may have been dead, but there must have been another in the Old Ways with a spiritual sensitivity. How had the deal been phrased? Give me your lives, your energy, your heart, and I will give you vengeance. It had been something like that. The people didn’t run, didn’t scatter from the wendigo’s attack, because it had been a willing offering. They gave themselves to it.

The wendigo had been tracking me, slowly, but surely, ever since. It had followed the same roads Veruca and I had driven on our way back to Boston. It was stopping and feeding as it went, but it was learning…the closer it got to Boston, the less evidence of its attacks it left behind. In Memphis, all they found was a partially frozen severed arm. In Pittsburgh, they never found a body at all, though the number of missing persons during the blizzard was suspiciously high.

Why so slow? Why so careful? Because it knows I’m dangerous. It should, too. It knows it woke up because someone was walking the Shadowlands, disturbing both its sleep and the peace of the Twins. My guess was it knew that someone was me.

“When did you figure it out?”

“You’re not really my subconscious, are you?”

“Hey buddy, it’s just you and me, right? What else could I be?”

The internal dialogue was interrupted by my arrival at the rest stop. A state trooper’s vehicle was parked blocking the off ramp. I pulled up beside him and waited for the trooper to come to my window.

I rolled it down as he leaned over. “Rest area is closed, sir. There’s another...”

I held up the Richard Dugger employee ID. “Valente International sent me to check out the leak.”

The trooper nodded, but instantly pulled back as if Valente were an infectious disease. “I’ll pull out of the way, then tape off the entrance.” He took another step back before asking, “Do I need to see a doctor or something? I’ve been out here for 45 minutes.”

I put on my most scholarly face. “Usually takes at least two hours of continuous exposure, except in children or pregnant women. Still, better safe than sorry.”

The officer didn’t say another word as he let me in, taped up the entrance with caution tape, and sped off. That left me all alone with my car, my supplies, and my dark alter ego. Once I was sure the trooper was gone, I parked as far away from the road as possible, and gobbled down a cereal bar for both energy and good luck.

I pulled the Necronomicon from the bag, for once not fearing the strange energy that pulsed through its black leather. I flipped right to the section I was looking for, even though I had avoided it like the plague for the last three years:

“In the dark recesses of that ancient cavern,

I could hear the mad priest still chanting,

His deathless voice repeating the forbidden words,

Fast and frantic, an insane jumble of ranting;

Yog-Shoggoth Abishai Nostaru Nofar Immi-shoggoth.

Each syllable of that dark tongue echoed over water and stone and I knew then what must be done: For what horrors might come if I allowed the mad priest, the terrible mad priest to call Yog Soggoth, Walker of Shadows?”

“You ate Sarai.”

“Details. Try and think big picture here, kid.”

“You ate her.”