With a resounding crack, Erin hit it in the back of its head with a sledgehammer.
The mutant creature rocked forward, eyes comically wide in its still mobile face. Erin hit it again and stone shards cracked off. The monkey hit the ground, face first, thrashing, but down. With a primal little scream, Erin smashed the hammer into its skull over and over. She broke through the stone and hit mushy brains, but even as she kept going, there came little clunks of impact with solidity in the grey matter.
She seemed to need the outlet, so I let her go and looked myself over for damage.
There were great rips in my shirt and jeans, scratches on my wrists and a cut in my side I hadn’t felt being inflicted. None of them bled too bad, so I didn’t worry.
Leaving Erin to her therapeutic venting, I went up to the house. The door was unlocked. Probably didn’t have to worry so much about keys when you had mutated stone monkeys acting as security.
It was dark inside, all the windows covered in paper and cardboard. Enough light came in the back door to illuminate the kitchen. If anyone actually lived here, they didn’t cook. Or keep anything cold. There was no running water and no electricity. Everything was coated in disturbed dust, the signs of people, or monkeys, moving around but not cleaning. There was dirt and leaves and rotting fruit everywhere. Not to mention the rank stink of shit and piss. I assumed that before they became more stone than flesh, the monkeys still needed food. Probably explained the giant vege patch.
Erin appeared in the doorway, carrying the hammer. There was dirt and green matter mixed in with a few smears of blood, probably evidence of where she’d dug it up from the overgrown weeds. Hammer in hand, she looked rough and bloody and ready for anything. There was a wild, reckless cast to the way she stood there that was more natural on her than the professional in a business suit she was in the office. She was an undeniable force, a strong, immediate presence in the small space that called to me.
I wanted her.
So suddenly and so completely it shocked me immobile.
Fishing in a pocket, she retrieved a torch. “Right, let’s see what other surprises there might be.”
I watched her venture further into the house, appreciating the fit of her jeans as she went.
“Hawkins!” she snapped. “Keep up.”
Eyebrow cocked, I murmured, “Yes, ma’am,” and followed.
The zoo cage theme continued through every room. There was no furniture, so the place had probably been abandoned and can’t have been where our rogue was living. We found more monkeys. Three of them, dead. Well, mostly dead.
Two were completely stone, like the one that had dived into Sean’s head. The last one, not overgrown or bloated, lay in a corner, moaning softly. It was stone from just under its arms downward. Some of its internal organs had to still be working, because it breathed and made sad, pathetic little sounds. Big black eyes found us and it chirped, lifting a little hand, looking for help.
From the shoulders up it might as well have been Marcel.
Erin made a strangled sob of a sound and turned away. The warrior aspect vanished with that one gesture, washed away by the sudden trickle of tears down her face.
Something in her or the poor bundle of tortured misery in the corner sliced into me. It touched with warm fingers the cold sitting in my chest and, if not banished it, at least brought it to my attention.
Erin was, again, right.
I hadn’t been acting like myself.
Standing there, looking at the poor little animal, in such pain and confusion, I began to feel it. Or rather, not feel it.
I’d just been clobbered by a stone monkey the size of a large dog and there was no pain. It had slammed its rock-hard head into my shoulder with enough force my arm should be numb. I pushed back the neck of my shirt. There was a big, ugly bruise there, but I didn’t feel it. I pushed on the cut in my side. Dampness from the smearing blood but nothing else.
Shoot.
“Matt?”
At first I thought the pain in her voice was for me, as if she already knew what was just dawning on me, but when I looked at her, she was staring fixedly at the moaning monkey.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Go out. I’ll take care of it.”
She hesitated, then nodded. I felt her hand on my arm as she went past, but didn’t really register the squeeze of her fingers.
When I was alone, I crouched by the pathetic little creature. It was shocking to realise just how small it was. Marcel was such a bright spark, always bouncing and happy and dashing from here to there, he seemed bigger, more present. But this thing was tiny and terrified and in pain.
My hand covered its whole head. Its shoulders shivered in my other hand. It mewled, small and so scared.
I was crying, the monkey blurring in my vision. It was Sean all over again. He had trusted me, was about to tell me his dark little secret and I had lied and put him in the place where he’d died. Alive. Then not. An instant for him, over before he knew it had begun. I doubted it would be over that quickly for me.
With a little crunch, the monkey’s neck broke and its misery was ended.
Mine was just beginning, but if it progressed as it had for these poor animals, then maybe I wouldn’t feel anything at all soon.
Erin had retreated all the way out of the house. She stood on the edge of the ensorcelled garden, arms wrapped around herself, head titled back in the sunlight, tears on her pale cheeks.
She gave a little gasp when I caught her arms. Eyes flying open, she tried to protest but it died when I put my forehead to hers and stared into her eyes.
Erin stilled against me, shocked and uncertain.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just need this… before I can’t… Please.”
She made a soft, pained sound and relaxed in my hold.
In the past, this was all it had ever taken. A touch, a kiss, a direct gaze, and her aura would leap out and wrap around me. Erin’s had been the first human aura I ever touched. Sweet and bitter, dark and rich. It had haunted me all the months I’d known her, teasing me with what I would never have. She was everything I could ever want—strong and smart and loyal. She stood with me, stood for me, stood against me. Partner, friend, enemy, all in one.
And I would never have her. Not the way I wanted.
But I would have this. One more time, I would have this, at least.
The only thing wrong… I couldn’t taste her aura.
I wanted, no, needed to touch it. To feel that sweet darkness surround me and invade me. But I couldn’t find it, no matter how hungrily I pulled at her or how deeply she looked into my eyes.
It wasn’t her, though. It was me.
No pain, no filter, no empathy, no aura.
Just as Tanqueray had only had tattered remains of his aura.
I pushed Erin away, gently, but firmly. She was breathing hard, wild eyed and blushing as if we’d done more than just look.
“What was that?” she asked softly.
I couldn’t tell her. It was too big, too terrible and I didn’t want her hurting for me.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I think it all just hit me at once. Sean, Tanqueray, Dev being missing.”
It wasn’t holding water. Erin eyed me sceptically. I didn’t blame her. I’d been acting the cold bastard all morning, dismissing not just Dev, but her concerns as well. The guilt for which curled in my stomach and I was happy to feel it. At least that much of me was still working.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here. We need to look at our wounds and I’d rather not do that here.”
She agreed silently and we made our cautious way back to the car. I kept looking over my shoulder, checking for more mad mutant monkeys. Nine monkeys had gone missing and we’d only accounted for seven. Who the hell knew where the last two were, and what sort of state they were in. I guess we were just lucky none of the plant life had joined the homicidal game.
Erin didn’t feel steady enough to drive, so I did, taking us back to her office. She protested, knowing what I meant to do even before I did it. Still, we sat on the couch with the first aid kit and cleaned our wounds. I bound the worst of Erin’s and she stuck a dressing over the cut in my side.
“Salisbury next?” she asked, tidying away the remains of our triage.
“Yeah, but just me.”
Erin didn’t glare or yell, just continued picking up discarded wipes and dressing wrappers. “I think that’s a mistake.”
Adjusting my worse-for-wear shirt back into place, I stood. “Why? Because I’m not acting like myself?”
“That, and you might need backup. Again.”
“I’ll be fine.” I carefully refrained from saying she would probably be in more danger with me, because I wasn’t acting like myself, apparently. “Besides, you should probably do more to find Dev. What if he really is in trouble?” Appealing to her PI professionalism would probably be more successful than relying on her sense of self-preservation.
She did glare then. Her I-hate-it-when-you’re-right glare. “Fine. But call me the moment you find something out. Or if you need me. There’s two more monkeys out there, remember. Who knows what the hell’s been done to them or where they are.”
“Sure, sure,” I muttered as I left
God. It felt good to finally have her off my freaking back. Nag nag bloody nag.
Downstairs, I clambered into Free Willy and hauled bulk back south.
If I forced myself to think about it, to remember the dread and fear I’d felt in the abandoned monkey-house, then it scared me. I’d been ensorcelled. Something was happening to me I couldn’t control, couldn’t fully understand. The same thing that had happened to those monkeys, and to Tanqueray.
I flexed my left hand around the steering wheel, feeling once again the fluidity of the joints, the ease of movement. Back to normal.
But it was a lie. Yes, I had mobility back and I’d fooled myself into believing that had been the only problem, now fixed. It wasn’t, though. There was an added weight to the limb, a sense of density I didn’t feel in my right arm.
What if the only cure was a sledgehammer?
Then I pulled up outside the Salisbury address and all those concerns slipped away as if they were nothing. It was too hard to keep them front and present in my mind. All I really cared about was finding out who was behind this. Who this mysterious rogue sorcerer was who’d brought so much trouble to my city.
Thankfully, this time the house was neat and tidy. A lowset brick place with a basic front yard comprising of a trimmed hedge along the driveway and garden-bed of easy to care for plants. The blinds on the windows were all drawn and there was no car in the carport. It appeared no one was home.
Utilising Erin’s trick, I made a grab for the contents of the letterbox, coming up with a few envelopes. I got back into the Monster Mobile before anyone could yell at me for stealing, then looked at the name on the mail.
Dr T Carver.
The moment of shock faded all too quickly. In hindsight it all fit.
He worked at the QEII hospital in Coopers Plains, where he’d encountered both Tanqueray and me. He was more than a few degrees shy of sane. For fuck’s sake, the man’s comb over was more complicated than a Rubik’s Cube. And the freaky-arse prose over the dead body, ‘Born of flesh, and at the end, stone and dirt.’ That most definitely could have been a trigger, like Dev’s gibberish.
The only thing that didn’t confirm it was his age. Clearly heading toward sixty, Carver had exceeded the usual sorcerer life span by at least ten years. Still, the scales came down on the ‘he’s a nutter’ side of the argument and I was willing to bet a whole heap Carver was our rogue sorcerer.
I considered for about two seconds calling Erin. Then decided against it. I was still phoneless thanks to Dev and she’d only slow me down with her demands for something other than circumstantial evidence.
Ramming Andre the Prado into gear, I headed for Coopers Plains and the hospital.
In the car park outside the morgue, I took a moment to remember what ‘normal’ was like. Almost found it for real, a flashing moment of worry at how I was acting, but it vanished quicker than it had arrived. Feeling cold and detached again, I went into the building.
The receptionist was on the phone when I reached the counter. I waited patiently, smiling. Which apparently didn’t work, because when she glanced at me, she frowned and turned away slightly, finishing her call in a lower voice. But, honestly, screw her.
“How can I help you?” she asked, eventually, plastering her own fake smile on.
“Hi,” I said in a sickly sweet voice, “my name’s Matt Hawkins. I was here the other day with Erin McRea. We had an appointment with Dr Carver. I just have some follow up questions for him. Is he available?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Dr Carver is unavailable today. Perhaps you could come back tomorrow.” The smug smirk in her tone was a blatant challenge.
“Perhaps if you could just call through, tell him I’m here. I’m sure he’ll be available for me.” To gloat at the very least.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, sir. Dr Carver is not actually in today.”
“Fine. Can you tell me why he’s not here?”
“I’m sure I can’t, sir.”
Right. He was probably off making a replacement for the Colonel.
“Thanks all the same,” I said in the same tone she used. “You’ve been a peach.”
It was clear what my next move was. Carver hadn’t been at home, and he apparently wasn’t at work.
Stakeout time.