FOUR

There’s a small knot—sorry, unfortunate choice of words—of people gathering on the sidewalk outside the church. I join them. Nobody’s saying a word, we’re just all standing there in shock.

“Folks, you should really go home,” says the deputy. It’s Quinn Silver, the guy I was serving coffee to this time yesterday. He was just another customer, then. Now, he’s …

Someone who could send me to prison.

But none of us leave. We’re hypnotized by the sight of the black-clad body, swaying and spinning in the wind. I wonder how he got up there—I don’t see a ladder. Maybe there’s a hatch in the roof.

“Awful,” someone finally mutters.

Me, I can’t stop looking at his shoes. I keep expecting them to fall off, but they don’t. “Are those lace-ups or loafers?” I say. “I can’t tell.”

I get a glare from a woman in a jogging suit. Uh-oh, what’s the crazy lady going to say next? “Well, I can’t,” I mutter. There, that’ll show her.

Thropirelem has two police cars. The other one pulls up, with the town fire truck right behind it. The sheriff gets out and confers with the two volunteer firemen about exactly where he wants the ladder.

A few words here about the sheriff. He’s the town’s most eligible bachelor, and probably the only guy who could take Charlie in a fight. He grew up here but went to school back east, all on scholarships; his brain is apparently as muscular as the rest of him. He’s a lot better than we deserve—though there are rumors that the reason he took a job in his hometown was because of some sort of trouble he got into while he was away. That’s probably just the usual small-town whispering, but I do know you don’t want to make him mad. I’ve seen him lay out a belligerent drunk with a single backhand slap, and the drunk wound up losing a tooth, too.

He doesn’t much care for me, though. Too bad, in too many ways.

And then the sheriff spots me in the slowly increasing crowd. The look on his face is hard to read, but it’s not the usual mild irritation or restrained tolerance. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he looked confused.

Oh, wait. I don’t know better. In fact, I don’t know much of anything at this point, other than I’m looking at my second dead body in twenty-four hours. That, and—according to that always-reliable source of hard data, Voices from the TeeVee—all this is really happening. Whatever it is.

I tug on Galahad’s leash and step forward. The sheriff sees me coming and tries to retreat behind the yellow tape that Deputy Silver’s putting up, but he doesn’t have it taut yet and Galahad and I just hop over.

“You can’t come any closer, Ms. Valchek,” he says. “This is a crime scene.”

“Is it?” I say. “Looks like a suicide to me.” I keep my voice low—I don’t want this conversation broadcast all over the town grapevine.

“It’s the subject of an ongoing investigation, which as far as you’re concerned is the same thing.” He’s studying me intently as he talks—as if he’s decided that if he has to talk to me, he’s going to pay attention.

“Of course, if it was a suicide, you’d expect to find a ladder,” I point out. “Since the fire truck’s here, I guess you didn’t. Is there a hatch in the roof? I don’t see one.”

“We don’t know how he got up there. Not yet.”

I’m looking up as we talk, taking advantage of being a little closer than the rest of the crowd, and now I can see that the other end of the rope is tied around a rafter at the corner of the roof. There’s something strange about the knot, though.

“Any idea why he’d do such a thing?” I ask.

“I can’t speculate at this point, Ms. Valchek. Now, please, step back behind the tape.” He takes my elbow and leads me there as he talks, and there’s nothing hesitant about his grip.

When the ladder’s in place, the sheriff himself climbs up with a camera and takes lots of pictures. Then they rig a harness up to the body with a cable going over the top of the roof before they cut the rope and lower it to the ground. I’d really like a good look at that rope, but there’s only one idea I can come up with to do so. It’s both stupid and unlikely to work. But since it’s all I’ve got …

I take Galahad down the sidewalk, about twenty feet away from the crowd. I lean down and whisper, “Gally. I need you to do something for me, okay? When I take off your leash, I want you to dash over there by the policemen and make a nuisance of yourself. Don’t let them catch you. Run around, bark, paw at the ground. I’m going to call for you, but don’t listen. After a few minutes, head for home. Do this, and I’ll go out and buy you a steak.”

Galahad looks at me with the same sort of undisguised affection he always does, and licks my hand. Sure, Jace. Would you like me to stop off at the supermarket and pick up some milk on my way home, too?

I sigh. Then I unclip his leash. I know he’s just going to sit there until I start moving, at which point he might be motivated to go pee on a bush—

He takes off at high speed. Right toward the sheriff.

The sheriff isn’t really paying attention, so Gally starts barking while he runs. It looks like Galahad might try to bowl him right over, but he darts to the left at the last second. Now he’s on a collision course with the deputy kneeling next to the corpse.

“Hey!” the sheriff yells.

Me, I just stand there dumbfounded. Apparently Galahad has Lassie genes somewhere in his DNA.

“Valchek!” the sheriff snaps. “Control your damn dog!”

Galahad slams to a stop, but now he turns and starts digging like crazy. Sod and dirt spray in the direction of Father Stone’s body, as if my dog’s decided he needs to be buried right now. Gally pauses for a second, though, and looks at me. I swear the expression on his face reads Well? What are you waiting for?

I stride forward, shouting, “Galahad! Stop that right now!”

Gally lets me get close before bolting away again. I give chase, which brings me within a few feet of the body. As if reading my mind, Gally abruptly changes direction, giving me the opportunity to swerve and fake a fall.

“Ah,” I say. “My knee!”

I pause, favoring one leg as I slowly pull myself up, studying the corpse as I do so. The face is horrible, but I’m actually more interested in the rope. It’s thick, old, and grayish white, tied in the classic hangman’s noose with—I assume, since I don’t have time to count them—thirteen loops around the central cord.

But it’s the other end, the one that was tied around the rafter, that’s really interesting. Deputy Silver was about to stick it in a clear evidence bag when Galahad went into his routine, and right now it’s lying on top of the bag while Silver tries to corral my wayward pet. It’s tied in the most intricate knot I’ve ever seen. The thick rope weaves in and around itself in an almost organic way, reminding me of strands of muscle or a tangle of vines. The end is buried somewhere in the pattern, tucked in so cleverly I can’t find it. It must have taken a long time to create.

And somehow, it was done around a solid piece of wood three stories above the ground, in plain sight.

I get to my feet, trying not to overdo the limp, and wave the leash at Galahad. “Go home!” I call out. “Go home, you bad-ass dog!”

I think he’s having a little too much fun now, because he doesn’t stop right away. Well, Lassie was a ham, too.

He finally makes a break for it, and I limp after him. “Sorry!” I call back over my shoulder.

I swear I can feel Sheriff Stoker’s eyes on my back as I leave.

*   *   *

Charlie’s waiting for me when I get home. He’s sitting on my front steps with Galahad, looking relaxed and not at all like he’s just disposed of a dead body.

“Hey,” he says.

I stop and give him the quizzical eyebrow, a move I practiced as a snarky teenager and mastered as a snarky adult. “Hey? That’s what I get, a hey?”

“Would you prefer a hi? The more formal hello? Or are you looking for something in, say, a howdy-do?”

I crank the eyebrow down a few notches. “If you ever howdy-do me, I’ll be forced to reconsider our relationship in a more critical light.”

“Duly noted.”

“Anyway, I just thought hey was a little flip. You know, all things considered.”

“If I took the time to consider all things, I’d never get anything done.”

“That sounds like a quote.”

“It is. You said it to me last week.”

“Well, that makes me a genius and you a thief. Let’s go inside and celebrate the great success we’re enjoying in our respective fields.”

We pull off our usual banter—it’s practically a reflex, at this point—but there’s a certain hesitation underneath it, a little strain from forcing ourselves to be so casual. As soon as we get indoors, we stop trying.

“Why are there cop cars down by the church? I saw them but I didn’t stop.”

I walk into the kitchen and unwrap the steak I picked up on the way home. We may be a small town, but our local butcher is top-notch—I think he knows all the cows he sells personally. “Father Stone apparently hanged himself from the eaves.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Three stories up, no ladder around, no hatch in the roof. I walked up there with Gally and got a look as they cut him down—there was something really weird about the noose. Not the one around his neck, the one looped around the eaves. The knot was … I don’t know, really intricate. Would have taken a long time to do.”

Charlie sinks down onto my couch. “Damn. Guilt, you think?”

“One local religious leader kills another and then suicides out of remorse? Nice theory, but it leaves a few questions unanswered—like how he tied that damn knot without being seen, or even how he got up there in the first place.”

Charlie leans forward, hands clasped, elbows on his knees. “He could have tied the knot in the middle of the night. Used a ladder that was taken away afterward by someone else.”

“Okay, but why?”

He shrugs. “To make it seem mysterious? An act of God, maybe? Or maybe because a murder attracts more attention than a suicide, and Stone wanted Longinus’s little cult exposed.”

I put the steak in Galahad’s bowl, which he promptly attacks. “One type of crazy bouncing off another? I guess that’s possible—but you’d think Stone would leave something a little more incriminating behind.”

“Maybe there’s a note inside the church.”

I nod. “Could be. In which case the police are going to be showing up on Longinus’s doorstep really soon—and we just sanitized the crime scene.”

Charlie looks up at me. “I know what we did.”

“Yeah, but do you know why we did it?”

“Because you’re the obvious prime suspect. Those photos and that book indicate Longinus had some kind of obsession with you. You have a history of violence and mental illness and you’re the one who found the body. How am I doing?”

“Better than me. Are you sure I didn’t kill him? ’Cause I’m starting to wonder.”

“You been having blackouts?”

“No. Never.”

“Then you didn’t kill him. But there is one thing I’m a little unclear on.”

“Shoot.”

“Why were you there in the first place?”

“That’s … complicated. I think you need to take another look at Longinus’s notes, first.” I pull them out from their hiding place and hand them over before sitting down beside Charlie on the couch.

I let him read them over himself, first. Then we go over them together, helping each other decipher bits of scrawled handwriting. He doesn’t comment on any of it, just asks the occasional question about a specific word or letter he can’t make out.

When we’ve gone through the whole thing, he puts down the notes and leans back. Frowns.

“So,” I say.

“So,” he says. “Longinus was a loony toon.”

“Um,” I say.

“Vampires? Werewolves? He really believed all that? Makes the Satanic cult part look almost rational.”

“Yeah…”

“So why were you there, Jace?”

I look at Charlie. I take a deep breath, and then let it out. “Before I tell you, promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“That if I’m locked up in the psych ward, you’ll bring me food. Good food. The stuff they have stinks.”

He doesn’t hesitate. “I promise.”

“You know that show I’m not supposed to watch anymore?”

I tell him the whole thing. About the first time the Sword of Midnight spoke to me, and the second. I tell him what she said, emphasizing the “this is all real” aspect. He listens, very carefully.

“And that’s about it,” I say. “I know how it sounds. I’m not going to try to convince you I’m not crazy, because I’m not sure myself. But at least you know I’m not lying, because who the hell would try to use a story like this to justify anything?”

He nods, slowly. “Hmmm. So, the next step is obvious.”

“Oh, it is, is it? Enlighten me.”

“We watch some Bloodhound Files. See if I see the same thing you do. And even if I don’t, maybe you’ll get another message.”

“Wait. You’re not seriously suggesting any of this is real, are you?”

“No. But the Sword of Midnight is—kind of—and the first piece of information she gave you was the trigger that kicked all this into motion. I think that’s earned her further consideration as a source, don’t you?”

“Sure. If, you know, I’m not batshit insane.”

Charlie sighs. “You seem pretty rational to me. In fact, if anyone’s getting closer and closer to an asylum it’s yours truly—mainly because I can’t handle you questioning your sanity every thirty seconds. Let’s just pretend you’re normal and proceed from there, okay? For my sake?”

I study him for a second. Suddenly I feel a whole lot better—because if someone as hardheaded and down-to-earth as Charlie is willing to take my side, then I must be better off than I thought. It’s like my feet finally found solid ground to stand on.

“Okay,” I say quietly. “No more crazy talk.”

Galahad gives a little bark of encouragement, then goes back to devouring his steak.

I play the last few minutes of the episode where the Sword mentions Longinus right at the end. I’m tapping my fingers nervously on the side of the remote as the scene begins to play, sure that either she’ll say something else or Charlie won’t hear what I hear.

But it happens exactly the way I heard it the first time. And when I turn to look at Charlie, he nods. “Yeah. I heard it, too. But it’s only one word—could be a coincidence.”

“That’s what I thought. But then the whole corpse/cult/pictures-of-Jace thing happened, and I kind of gave up on that.”

“All right. Let’s check out the DVD—the one with the explanation.”

It’s still in the player, so all I have to do is find the scene. I’m sure that this time, nothing weird will happen.

But I’m wrong again. The whole thing happens just like I remember it—including the two little gaps in her dialogue when I responded to what she was saying.

Charlie’s leaning forward on the couch, frowning. He doesn’t say anything, not at first.

“That’s really weird,” he finally says.

“You think?”

“She’s talking directly to the camera, not anyone else in the scene. The break in the action makes no sense from a story point of view, not that I can see. Those pauses were when you answered her?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t see any signs of editing, either. No cutaways to another camera angle. It looks legit to me.”

“So what does it mean?”

He leans back, puts one elbow on the back of the couch. “Well, two things come to mind. The first involves a vast conspiracy that includes the actors on the show, the evil cult that Longinus ran, and a part-time waitress. Frankly, it’s not really holding together for me.”

“Me either. What’s the second?”

“That this is what it appears to be. Which isn’t a lot better, because all it does is remove the Hollywood conspiracy angle and replace it with magic. Real, actual sorcery. Or some kind of advanced technology that imitates it—but then we’re getting into science fiction territory as opposed to the supernatural. Aliens, time travel, top-secret government agencies, that sort of thing. Not really an improvement.”

“You sure you don’t want to reconsider the cee-arr-ay-zee-why thing?”

He gives me a look. “So let’s stick with the magic explanation for now, all right? We’ve got a dead cult leader and a book of what seem to be spells.”

“Plus a dead priest hanging from the roof of his own church, with no explanation of how he got there.”

“I want to give something a try, all right? Go in the kitchen and stay there until I call you back.”

“Why?”

“Just humor me.”

I shrug and do what he says, taking the opportunity to make a fresh pot of coffee. Galahad comes in and watches me, as usual. I hear the DVD start up again, but it must be another scene—all I hear are sounds of combat and action music.

“Huh,” Charlie says. “How about that … you can come back in.”

I do. He’s paused the DVD. “Well?”

“Hang on a sec.” He hits PLAY.

The Sword of Midnight shows up and starts talking again. Same spiel. Charlie lets her finish, then hits STOP. “Yeah, that’s pretty strange.…”

“What is? It’s the same as before.”

“Sure. As long as you’re in the room. When you were in the kitchen, she didn’t break the fourth wall. You came back, and she did.”

“So…”

“So congratulations. You’re not nuts. Oh, and apparently magic is real.”

I sink down on the couch. My brain feels overloaded. Turns out I’m not crazy, the rest of the world is.

Magic. That’s a big word. It covers everything from alchemy to Zeus, with a lot of stops in between. Does this mean leprechauns are real? Or Santa Claus? Or—

“Vampires,” I say.

“And werewolves,” Charlie adds.

“I used to think this was such a nice town.”

“No, you didn’t. You hate it here.”

“Well, yeah, but that was because of all the niceness. The horrible, small-minded, boring … man, do I hate it here.”

“That’s nice.” He smiles.

“Shut up. No, on second thought, keep talking—you’re like a walking antidote to niceness. You’re an irritation on two legs.”

“Gee, thanks. Now, what are we going to do?”

“About the vampires and werewolves?” I get back on my feet, stalk into the kitchen, and pour two mugs of coffee. Take them back to the living room and hand Charlie one. “Well, let’s see. We could go door to door with garlic, stakes, and silver crucifixes, or we could watch TV.”

“Got any popcorn?”

“No, just coffee.”

“Even better.”

So we settle in for a Bloodhound Files marathon, but as it turns out we don’t have to wait for very long. I choose episodes with the Sword of Midnight in them, naturally, and the first time she’s on screen—in a scene where she’s lurking in a darkened alley—she turns directly to us and says, “Good choice of episode. I don’t interact with anyone else in this scene for another minute, and I think I can stretch that out by staying on the move. Who’s the hunk?”

“Um,” I say. “This is—”

“Jake,” Charlie says. “Just call me Jake.”

I frown, but don’t contradict him. Charlie’s instincts have been good so far. “Let’s skip the formalities and get down to it, all right?” I say. “Vampires and werewolves—go.”

“You’ve only got two to worry about: the master vampire and the alpha wolf. Kill the alpha before the next full moon and anyone he or she has bitten won’t become a were. It doesn’t work that way for pires, though—you’ve got to stop all of them or it could spread. That would be bad—right now, these two are the only two of their kind in your reality.”

“My reality? What does that mean?”

“It means—”

“Hey!” a man’s voice shouts. “There’s someone out here!”

“Crap,” the Sword sighs, and then she’s fighting for her life.

Leaving me, presumably, to do the same.

*   *   *

That’s where we stall out. We watch a bunch more episodes—all the ones with the Sword of Midnight in them—but she fails to strike up another conversation. Either she’s said all she means to, which seems unlikely, or there’s some kind of limit to when or how often she can communicate.

“Makes sense, kind of,” Charlie says. “Magic always has arbitrary rules, doesn’t it? Only three wishes, be home by midnight, never get them wet.”

“That was Gremlins, Einstein.”

“And don’t tell them your true name—names have power, right? That’s why I gave her an alias.”

“Brilliant. Your use of a pretend monicker makes her ability to communicate from another dimension seem childish and pathetic. Next time, tell her your last name is Smith—that’ll show her just how outclassed she really is.”

“Another dimension, huh?”

“Reality, dimension, realm—whatever you want to call it, she ain’t from around here. And apparently neither are werewolves or vampires, which I find oddly comforting.”

“Sure. Because a whole dimension full of them is much less disturbing.”

“As long as they stay there, yeah. But it looks like Longinus was issuing his own diplomatic visas.”

Charlie shakes his head. “Maybe. But maybe he was trying to stop them, and that’s why he was killed.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “I guess it’s possible. But we still don’t know what I have to do with all of this.”

“Well, let’s see. Sorcery, cult, altar, attractive young woman. I’m guessing human sacrifice.”

“Terrific,” I grumble. “I’m the extra who’s supposed to die in the first scene. Nothing like knowing your place in the universe.”

“This isn’t television, Jace. It’s extremely weird and I have no idea what we’re going to do next, but this is happening. We’ve gotta deal with it.”

He’s right. And while I’m still a little freaked out, I don’t feel like I’m going to have a breakdown. I can handle this. For the first time in a long time, things feel right.

“I know what we have to do,” I say.

“What?”

I smile. “We find the trail. And then we follow it.”