part0017

Brent fell back asleep hard after breakfast the next morning. Travis left to return Hazel’s book, but Brent promised himself a little more shuteye. His dreams had been dark but fragmented, enough to keep him from sleeping well without allowing him to remember any of the images when he startled awake. Exhausted, he pulled the covers over his head and promised himself he’d get up in an hour, maybe sooner.

He was on the football field at his high school, tossing the pigskin back and forth with Danny. Brent glanced down at his right hand and saw the scar he’d gotten in the Army from a sharp piece of metal, so he knew time hadn’t changed for him, but Danny remained frozen at eighteen, as young and perfect as he’d been the last time Brent had seen him alive.

The football grazed his shoulder, jarring him out of his thoughts. “Oh no, too slow!” Danny mocked with a wide grin as he strode closer. All Brent could do was stare, drinking in the sight of his brother, feeling the familiar chasm open in his heart.

“Looks more like you missed the ball, bro,” Danny replied. His smile vanished. “And you’re missing the point.”

“Do you know where the kidnapper stashed his victims? Can you tell me anything that’ll help us shut this down?” Brent begged. Already Danny’s image had started to blur, and the antechamber began to lose its definition.

Brent thrashed awake, kicking clear of the thin motel blankets. He sat up with a gasp, then sagged with relief that Travis hadn’t witnessed his breakdown. The sense of fresh loss that always followed dreams about Danny washed over him, dredging up the grief and guilt that were never buried deep.

“Fuck,” Brent groaned, dropping back onto the mattress as he tried to regroup. He knew how quickly the memories of his dreams could fade, so he rolled over and grabbed for a pen and paper, scribbling notes so he could share Danny’s warnings with Travis. Maybe they were just the product of his imagination. But now that he knew more about Travis’s abilities as a medium, his doubts about the reality of Danny’s visits lessened. He hadn’t relived a remembered conversation; Danny’s words sounded spot on for the situation with the hell gate and genius loci. Brent just wished the dead would learn to skip the riddles and speak plainly. Or maybe they do, and it’s us mortals who are always a step behind.

Brent took the supply list and headed out. Travis had left him the keys to the Crown Vic, apparently opting to walk back to the archive. A stop at the building supply store yielded large bags of rock salt and a couple of boxes of small iron hardware. The local Walmart offered iron buckshot, lighter fluid, hairspray, sugar cookies, and powdered coffee creamer. Brent didn’t care what kind of skeptical look the clerk gave him, relieved that the young man didn’t seem to realize just how flammable some of the items were.

Travis was back at the motel by the time Brent returned with packages and lunch. “Find anything new?” he asked.

“I called Simon Kincaide. Told me the same thing about the fey hating iron and salt. He wasn’t sure the bit about wearing our clothing wrong-side out and having bread in the pockets would help but said it wouldn’t hurt. He did say that fresh cream made good bait to draw a fey out of hiding and that horseshoes over a doorway are supposed to stop them from entering. For what it’s worth.”

Brent thought the lore on fighting fairies sounded like something out of a Dungeons & Dragons session, but hours of searching online hadn’t turned up anything better, and Simon had a friggin’ Ph.D. in folklore, which ought to be good for something.

“I scanned through the information Hazel started to compile about the 1918 cataclysm,” Travis said, digging into the burger Brent handed him. “The interviews she did with people who had survived that period matched up with what happened in 1968—and what’s going on now. And I did find a map of the mines—took a picture of it in case you didn’t find anything better.”

Brent shook his head. “Everything I found is partial at best. You know what it’s like around Pittsburgh—so many old mining companies got bought, went bankrupt, or had their offices catch fire that no one has an official, complete map of anything. It’s just as bad here.”

“Yeah, half the time no one knows there used to be a mine under a neighborhood until the street—or a house—drops into a hole,” Travis replied.

Travis sent the photo of the old mine maps to Brent, who pulled them up on his laptop and did an overlay with the I-80 map showing the disappearances.

“If I draw lines like the spokes of a wheel from each place someone vanished with the black truck, the hub would be here,” Brent noted, letting his mouse hover over the point of convergence.

“Zimmer Mine number eight,” Trent said, looking up to meet Brent’s gaze. “And here’s another bit of news—there wasn’t a mine number nine until later when a second access shaft was built. So when Hazel’s cataclysm happened—and the 1918 event—there was only mine number eight.”

“I’ve got the ammo,” Brent said, crumpling up the wrapper for his burger and tossing it into the trash. “Let’s go spriggan-hunting.”

The old Zimmer Mine road was barely visible after decades of abandonment. Weeds and brush filled in the track, but nature had not yet obliterated the man-made gap between the older trees. Once he knew what to look for, Brent could clearly see the path. They took the Crown Vic as far as they dared, then loaded the supplies into their backpacks and began the hike.

“The weeds have been flattened,” Travis pointed out.

“Yeah, your car might not be able to get through here, but a four-wheel-drive pickup could, easily,” Brent replied. “I’d say we’ve come to the right place.”

All of the disappearances had occurred at night, and everything Brent had found about the spriggan suggested it was strongest in the dark. That made daylight the best time to fight it, assuming they could lure it from its hiding place.

Tension churned in Brent’s stomach, as they neared the closed mine. He’d gone back over the disappearances, committed the list of names to memory. Those that had been gone the longest, he doubted they would find alive. But the most recent victims might not be dead yet, and he clung to that thin hope.

“There it is,” Travis said, pointing to where a black pickup sat in the shadows beneath a stand of trees. Nearby, the remains of the buildings that had once supported the mine could still be seen amid the overgrowth. The concrete arches of a loading area, the metal scaffolding of a tipple, and the tumble-down bricks of a small office building were almost all that remained of the once-busy mine. Not far beyond, weathered boards and a rusted steel grating blocked the entrance to a large hole carved into the side of a steep hill.

“Can you get anything with your ESP?” Brent asked.

Travis rolled his eyes. “I hate that term. Next, you’ll want to know if I’ve heard anything on the psychic hotline.” He paused, and his gaze lost focus. “There’s a lot going on near here, a lot of energy, and most of it’s bad. Ghosts in the mines—no surprise from all the collapses and fires Hazel documented. It’s dangerous work in the best of times. Violence—maybe a strike? And over everything, it’s like there’s a dark film, an oily residue that’s just…evil.”

“The genius loci?”

Travis shrugged. “More like a side effect of it, I think. Or maybe it goes with the spriggan. Let’s do the job, and see if it gets any better.” He didn’t have to add that the area had triggered a headache. Brent could see from the squint of his eyes and the pinch of his mouth that Travis already felt the area’s effects.

The truck was empty. They checked it, careful not to touch or leave fingerprints or DNA. After they dealt with the spriggan, Brent would call Doug. Before then, the cops would only be a liability.

One by one, they eliminated the ruins and the crumbling structures as the fey’s hiding places. Most were too small or offered too little shelter, and even the brick building looked like it had lain undisturbed for decades.

That left the mine, as Brent feared from the start. Going in after the spriggan would be suicidal, so he could only hope that the lore wasn’t a bunch of malarkey.

In addition to turning their shirts inside-out, they had iron filings and salt in their pockets along with the bread crusts. Both men carried silver and iron knives. Travis’s shotgun shells were filled with rock salt, while those in the gun Brent carried were iron pellets.

Travis covered him while Brent made a large circle with the rock salt on a bare patch of ground, leaving one part open for the trap. Inside the salt circle, Brent set a large bowl and filled it to the brim with fresh cream. Since a few of the sources also suggested that the fey had a sweet tooth, he added some cookies for good measure. Once the spriggan went inside the circle, he shouldn’t be able to get out except through the gap in the salt, where Brent and Travis would be waiting.

Assuming the lore was right.

Brent dribbled some extra cream from the trap circle up to the mine entrance, dropping a few cookies as well. Then he and Travis found cover in the concrete ruins of a building’s foundation and waited.

Nothing happened for long enough that Brent’s patience waned. He fidgeted, checking the time, staring at the mine entrance as if he could force the spriggan from cover by sheer willpower. Travis gave him a glare that got Brent to settle but only for a short time.

After what seemed like an eternity, Travis raised his head as if he were scenting the breeze. “Something’s coming.”

When Brent thought of the fey, he pictured the exceptionally pretty creatures seen in movies or the equally impressive dark beings from his gaming manuals. Apparently, movie animators and game designers had never seen a real fairy.

The being that slipped cautiously from between the broken boards at the mouth of Zimmer Eight moved like a hunched ape. Its size—that of a chimp—strengthened the impression. The body was hairless, and its limbs long and thin, but the spriggan was hardly the graceful, elegant fairy from the illustrations in children’s books.

Yet for all its oddities, something about the spriggan captivated his attention. Brent took a half-step toward the circle and stopped when Travis held up a hand. Was this magic? Brent had read enough stories where the fey tempted people away from their homes, into the marsh or elsewhere, never to be seen again.

“It’s a glamor,” Travis said. “Like a vampire can cast. You see the ugliness, but you don’t care. It’s the way it lures its victims.”

Maybe the bread and wrong-side clothing helped, at least a little, or perhaps it was the iron in his pockets and the knives in his scabbards, but Brent saw the spriggan with an odd double vision. The misshapen creature, with its too-long face and frighteningly wide mouth, was overlaid with the image of a luminous being that morphed into the artist’s ideal of a wood nymph the longer Brent stared at the monster.

“Look,” Travis murmured, barely audible.

The spriggan paused as it followed the dollops of cream and bits of cookie, hesitating as it neared the broken circle. Travis had intentionally left the entrance wide enough that the salt would not crowd the opening, and Brent hoped that the ample break gave the creature a false sense of security.

Hunger won out over caution. The spriggan loped up to the opening and then through it, intent on claiming the large bowl of cream and the pile of cookies in the center.

Brent and Travis shared a look. Now!

The blast of Travis’s shotgun echoed from the hills as the salt rounds hit the dirt, scattering and sealing the spriggan inside the circle. Alarmed, the fey drew itself up and screeched, a hideous, ear-piercing wail. Seconds after Travis’s shot, Brent unloaded both barrels of iron pellets, hitting the fairy directly in the chest.

The creature screamed again as black streaks appeared from every place the iron pierced its milk-white skin. The glamor vanished, leaving only the fey’s hideous true form, and it bared its knife-sharp teeth. The spriggan launched itself at them but drew back from the salt as if burned.

“Now what?” Brent asked. They had the creature contained, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to kill the thing.

“You keep him covered, and I’ll check inside the entrance to the mine for the victims,” Travis said.

“You’re the one with the magic.”

“You’re a better shot.”

Brent conceded with a glare.

“I want to get the victims out before you cap him,” Travis said.

“Cap him? Why don’t I just waste him or blow him away ? Did we somehow end up in a Bruce Willis movie?”

Travis shot a grin over his shoulder as he jogged toward the mine. “I’m just trying to speak the language of a hard-boiled private dick.”

“Bite me,” Brent replied, flipping him off for good measure.

Bleak humor in the face of danger felt familiar, a way Brent and his squadron coped when shit got real. Brent turned back to the spriggan, which paced its circle like a death row inmate, testing the warding and drawing back with a squeal each time as the salt repelled it.

“Settle down,” he warned. “Your time is coming.”

The image of a suitcase full of money suddenly filled his vision. Beyond the table that held the case and cash, an idyllic beach stretched toward the ocean. Brent heard music and laughter coming from nearby, as a warm breeze caressed his face. A figure on the beach waved, and he recognized Danny, healthy and whole, standing beside a beautiful woman who blew a kiss to Brent.

“Whoa!” he muttered, realizing he’d taken a step or two closer to the circle. Inside, the spriggan watched him, its golden eyes burning with an inner fire. Brent backed up, and raised his Glock, figuring that putting a silver bullet between the creature’s eyes would be a first step to making it real dead.

“Try it again, and I won’t wait for him to come back,” Brent growled.

Had that been how the spriggan drew its victims within reach? From the knowing, crafty smile the monster gave him, Brent figured that to be true. What had it promised each of the young women it lured into the truck? Brent juggled the guns so he could close one hand around the bread crusts and iron in his pocket. Immediately, his mind cleared, and the spriggan growled as any remaining connection severed.

“Hurry!” Brent shouted as anger replaced the disorientation and allure of the fairy’s trap. Money, luxury, and sex were generic bait, but somehow the monster had picked Danny’s image from his mind, and that made Brent furious. Could the creature read his thoughts? Brent imagined taking the fey apart limb from limb, slowly and with a lot of salt. The spriggan hissed and jumped back, putting more distance between them.

“Fuck with me again, and I’ll do it,” Brent promised, leveling the Glock at the creature.

“Coming out!” Travis called. Brent did not turn, unwilling to take his attention off the spriggan for even an instant.

He heard the weeds rustle and Travis murmuring to someone else, but no other voices. After a few more minutes, the ex-priest joined him, shotgun in hand.

“Three of them were already dead, along with a man, whom I guess was the truck owner,” Travis reported. “Looked drained dry, like mummies. If there were other bodies, they were farther back. I found two of them alive—the most recent ones taken. Rachael and Alicia. I got them out of the mine. They’re waiting near the tunnel mouth, with the thermal blankets I packed in and some water bottles. Let’s finish this, and we’ll get Doug out here to clean up the mess.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Brent muttered. His silver bullet hit the spriggan squarely in the forehead. The creature dropped to its knees with an unholy shriek, then threw itself in their directions, hands outstretched as if to rip them apart.

Travis’s shot with an iron round caught the spriggan full in the face. Its head split open, and the rest of its body shriveled. Brent unloaded another two shotgun shells of iron into the monster, and the creature collapsed in a flash of light that caused them both to look away. When they looked back, all that remained was a cindered shell.

“Now what?” Brent asked.

“Burn the fucker,” Travis said. “And chop it to bits, for good measure. Salt the remains. I saw those bodies in the mine. We need to make sure the son of a bitch stays dead.”

Brent moved warily to comply, deciding this was one situation where overkill was a virtue. He hacked at the stringy body with an iron machete and sprinkled the parts with salt and iron filings. Lighter fluid set what was left of the corpse aflame. Travis stood watch for a few moments until he seemed sure the creature would not rise from the ashes, and then went back to check on the victims, who were just beginning to rouse from the glamor the spriggan had placed on them.

“We found them,” Travis reported on his phone to Doug as he came back to rejoin Brent. “They’re weak, and it looks like they might have been drugged, maybe in shock. But we’ve got two of them alive, and the bodies of some others are in the mine.” He paused to listen. “Yeah, we’re just leaving. Give us fifteen minutes for a head start, and we’ll be long gone.”

He turned to Brent. “Come on. I need to call Ellie and let her know Rachael’s okay. Let’s get out of here before we have to explain any of this. Neither of us would look good in orange jumpsuits.”