Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) (6 page)

The cheese wasp was still asleep, but that had been enough movement to wake Sparks. He curled up on my shoulder while I got dressed. I took my book and headed downstairs.

Jeremiah Whateley was just opening the front door when I arrived.

“Up already?” he asked. “Breakfast isn’t for another two hours.”

“I’m not sleepy anymore,” I said.

“Is the room not to your liking?”

“It’s fine,” I assured him. “I just felt restless.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I’d had a bad dream. Jeremiah nodded to himself.

There was a room off to the side of the lobby that had comfortable chairs arranged around a fireplace. I sat down in a chair where I could see the front desk out of the corner of my eye. It was my idea of the perfect reading environment. I never feel entirely secure when there aren’t other people around. With Jeremiah Whateley wandering through the lobby, I could relax and enjoy the quiet.

Unfortunately for me I had misjudged Jeremiah. Despite his creepy butler demeanor, he wasn’t the type to keep quiet when there were other people around. Before I’d even found my spot in the book, he’d left the lobby and was looming over me.

“Would you like me to start a fire?” he asked.

“I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It wouldn’t be. I can’t sleep past four myself, and there’s little to do this early. I assure you it would be no trouble at all.” As proof, he nodded to the fireplace and flames arose, even though there was no wood in the grate.

“Am I still asleep?” I asked. He laughed.

“No,” he said. “Strange things happen all the time in this town. It’s best not to think about it.” I sighed and moved to a chair closer to the fire. The chairs in the lobby were very comfortable.

“Would you like some hot chocolate?” he asked.

“Is the hot chocolate magic too?” I asked.

“No,” he assured me, “it’s just ordinary hot chocolate.”

“Then yes, please.”

When he came back a few minutes later, the cocoa had mini marshmallows in it.

“I’m not a child,” I complained.

“Would you like a cup without marshmallows?” I shook my head.

“I’m older than this country,” I said under my breath.

“And you don’t look a day over eighteen,” Jeremiah said. “Some people would be delighted to be so well-preserved.”

I hadn’t intended him to overhear, but he didn’t seem surprised.

“In any case, I’m sure old people are allowed to like mini marshmallows.” I frowned, but dropped it. I don’t want to be thought of as old either. I just wished I looked like an adult, not somebody who might not be old enough to drive.

“Do you own that field behind the hotel?” I asked.

“Yes,” Jeremiah said. “It’s more of a marsh, and we own it all the way to the drop-off. The town owns Bishop’s Hollow.”

Aha, this must be one of Cecilia’s family’s occult traditions.

“Is that what the forest is called?”

“Yes. You can’t see it from here, but the marsh ends in a steep hill leading down to the forest. It was a Bishop who first went down there, and it was another Bishop who warned the other settlers to stay away.”

“What happened to that first Bishop?”

“No one knows. If you get close, you’ll see that it’s an easy warning to follow.” He shook his head. “My brother and I used to go down there as children and dare each other to look into the forest. Neither of us managed to get to the tree line.”

“Is the ground rough?”

“No. It’s difficult to describe what you’ll experience if you get too close. It’s unpleasant, and as I said it becomes stronger the closer you get.”

“Do any of the tourists go there?”

“If they do they’re trespassing,” he said. “I don’t allow tours. Apart from the legend I don’t want the bother of getting sued if someone loses their way in the marsh and drowns.”

“Then was someone from your family out there tonight?” I asked.

“Why do you ask?”

I told him about the lights. He seemed angry, but just asked me if I’d like another cup of cocoa.

Breakfast was excellent, and I wasn’t the only guest who was in the dining room first thing in the morning. Several of the other guests were more Whateleys. Now I understood why Jeremiah had the same long hair as Fiona. Apart from their solid black eyes there wasn’t anything remarkable about any individual Whateley, but taken as a group they were alarmingly identical despite various piercings, radical hair colors, facial tattoos, and bold fashion choices. It was like staring at a sea of customizable video game characters. I wondered if the rest of the town had trouble telling them apart or if there were subtler differences I wasn’t picking up on.

I’d agreed to go to Fiona’s for lunch, but until then I didn’t have much to do so I went for a walk. There was a big church visible at the end of the road, so I headed towards it.

It turned out to be a huge church much further away than I’d thought. It had to be the Lutheran church Cecilia had mentioned, but it was the most impressive church I’d ever seen. Not only was it enormous for a Lutheran church, it put every other church I’d seen in my life to shame. It wasn’t just its size that made it impressive: it was an architectural masterpiece. Looking up at the bell tower reaching for heaven made me dizzy. Along the roof, I could see glimpses of gargoyles and angels. The grounds were much less intimidating. A few roses were hanging on, and there were tiny pumpkins piled up in front of the huge main doors. There was a smaller door to one side with an autumnal wreath hung on it, and a sign saying they were open all hours, so I went in.

The inside of the church was dark and oppressively holy. The stained glass windows high above me gave color to the interior but not much light. I felt like I was at the bottom of a pit, with a rainbow shining far above me. With me in the dark was a much more prosaic cork board with brightly colored flyers pinned to it. While Sparks flew around the narthex, I read the flyers.

It seemed that Fiona was also a member of this church. She was in charge of their bake sale, so she hadn’t been kidding about liking to feed other people. Most of the other announcements were equally banal. They were advertising a reenactment of the battle of Jericho, which I thought was an odd selection.

“Are you considering joining?” A voice said from behind me.

I’ll admit it; I screamed. When I turned around, a kindly old man dressed as a pastor was smiling at me benevolently.

“Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” I told him.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I always forget how quiet this floor is. I should have said something earlier. I’m Pastor MacReady; I’m the pastor here.” He held out his hand for me to shake.

“No, I’m just visiting,” I said after shaking his hand. “I thought I might attend Sunday’s service.” I hadn’t had any such thought, but what else do you say when confronted with a pastor? ‘I don’t care about your church; I was just killing time?’ Have fun burning in Hell for that one.

“Excellent,” the pastor said. “I’ve just come in to work on my sermon for this week. It’ll be my take on ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ I thought it would be a good inspiration for the reenactment.” I looked back to the flyer.

“Are you really going to reenact the battle of Jericho inside a church?”

“Oh no! Mr. Whateley, the hotel owner, allows us to use the space behind the hotel for our reenactments. We’re going to go all out.”

“Sounds exciting,” I said. I vaguely recalled the story of the battle of Jericho. It seemed ambitious for a reenactment. “Do you do this often?” He shook his head.

“Just once a year. We try to pick a different scene every time. Something big enough that everyone in the church can participate.”

“If everyone participates, who watches?”

“Oh, there are other churches in our town,” he said chuckling. “And the Lord only knows what the tourist trap owners worship. There are plenty of nonbelievers in town as well.”

“So this is a town wide event?”

“Yes, but only Lutherans can participate directly.” He stared at me. “Are you a Lutheran, Mr. Windisle?”

“I’ve gone to Lutheran services before,” I told him, “but I move around a lot. I tend to go to whatever church is available.”

“Then will I see you on Sunday? My sermon won’t be boring, I assure you.” I didn’t see any reason not to. Maybe the building would be less intimidating when it was full of people.

“You will if I’m still in town.”

It began raining on my way back to the hotel. So much for the nice weather Cecilia Bishop had predicted.

***

Fiona was less than thrilled to see the psychic cheese wasp.

“I thought I’d got rid of them all,” she said, glaring at it. I shrugged.

“There must be a dead one around here somewhere. I was hoping you’d help me find it and lay it to rest.” It buzzed around both of us, then zoomed into the kitchen.

“It doesn’t seem to recognize me,” Fiona said.

“I would have been surprised if it had. Shades have no memory of their own lives. They just remember the kind of creature they were.”

“So, if you made a shade of the dead construction workers they wouldn’t be able to tell you what happened to them?”

“You heard about that?”

“Earl is a good friend of mine. He likes to chat.” I’d noticed that. He’d told me everything except what I’d wanted to know when I’d spoken to him.

“I use different methods to get information out of the dead,” I told her, “but I’ve never created a human shade, so I couldn’t say for sure.”

“It would be convenient,” she said. “Anyway, I roasted a chicken and made pecan pie, so I hope you’re hungry.”

As we ate, she asked me what I thought of the town, and I told her what I’d been up to.

“Pastor MacReady is doing a hellfire and damnation sermon?” she asked. “I’ll believe that when I hear it.”

“Is it not his style?”

“God bless him, he’s a good man and he tries, but if you’re in a confrontation with serious evil he is
not
your man. He’s been the pastor longer than I’ve been alive, and I don’t think he’s raised his voice once the whole time. He probably thinks the Sermon on the Mount is too strongly worded.”

“But he doesn’t mind that you’re having a mock war.”

“It’s an interesting part of the Bible,” she said. “He’s serious about biblical education. Plus, we’ve been doing reenactments in the swamp since before there was a town.”

The food was delicious. I wished I could have eaten more. As it was, I wasn’t looking forward to going back into the attic. That was probably where the cheese wasp had died, though.

I was right. Its body had been embedded in plaster. I had to dig it out before I could lay it to rest, which was a simple matter of gently pushing it back into its body. Once I had done that Fiona gave a small scream. I turned around to see half a dozen more cheese wasps. Did I mention that being a necromancer can be a pain in the ass? Because it can.

“I had no idea,” she said.

“Were they in here while you were plastering?” I asked.

“I couldn’t avoid it, there were so many,” she said. “It was a rushed job, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I’ll lay them to rest too. If we burn them and scatter the ashes, they shouldn’t come back even if I spend the night here. High heat seems to eliminate the effect and so does breaking down the corpse.” Which was fortunate, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to eat meat without an accusing audience.

“How can you be sure you’ve got them all?” She asked.

“I can’t,” I said. “It’s not like corpses hold up signs that only I can see. I can only see the results of my power along with everyone else.”

“Hmmph. How much do you charge to use your powers?”

“You want me to exorcise your attic?”

“Yes. I can’t risk another necromancer coming in here and causing more trouble than you have.” I looked around. Digging out the psychic cheese wasp had left a crater in an already wretched plastering job. For someone who was already unsteady on her feet, it was dangerous. I shook my head.

“Whether I contact the spirits or not you’re going to have to scrape this stuff off the floor.” She groaned.

“I was hoping you would lie to me. Fine, but you’re helping me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I wouldn’t have known about the dead bugs embedded in my floor if you hadn’t shown up,” she said. I couldn’t argue with that.

“Fine, but don’t expect much. I’m not good at home improvement.”

“I don’t mind,” Fiona said. “Even if we did a good job something else would come along to ruin my floor eventually.”

We used trowels to scrape the plaster off and got rid of it by throwing it out the window.

“I’ll clean it up later,” Fiona said. We found over a dozen more cheese wasps in the corners of the room.

“How much of a hurry were you in?” I asked as I uncovered a whole pile of them.

“A very great hurry,” she replied. “They were the biggest threat to the world ever to come through that portal on my watch.”

We worked until dinner time and only cleared half the room. We ate leftover chicken, and I offered to come back the next day and help.

“I’d appreciate it,” Fiona said. “All that crouching is difficult for me.” I thanked her for the food and left.

When I entered the hotel, Mrs. Whateley jumped out of her chair at the sight of me.

“Mr. Windisle, you might want to take a shower,” she said. “You look more like a ghost than usual.”

I looked in the mirror behind her and realized that I was covered in plaster dust.

“Wow.”

“Were you building a wall?” she asked.

“No, I was tearing up a floor. May I have some extra towels sent to my room?”

“Oh, course.” She smiled at me. “Do you often tear up floors?”

“No, today was the first time.” I went back outside and shook off as much plaster as I could. My clothes looked appalling. I stuffed them in a garment bag. I’d wear them to help Fiona tomorrow then send them to be cleaned. Until then I had one extra set of clothes until my new ones got back from the cleaners.

***

I’d planned to spend the evening reading, but Steve called. He’d got his other experts organized and wanted to know if I could go back to the construction site and take another look around.

“I thought you wanted me to come back after the geologist.”

“That was before the chupacabra started eating my employees.”

“Wait, the what?”

“The goat sucker. It’s a legendary Puerto Rican monster that sucks the guts out of livestock.”

“I know what a chupacabra is,” I said. “It was the whole sentence I had a problem with.”

“Didn’t anyone tell you? The victims were eviscerated, and their internal organs are missing.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“Isn’t it? In this area, the real culprit could be just about anything. I’ve done some research, and this place is crawling with doomsday cultists and whatnot to the point that I’m surprised I haven’t seen any of them out picketing the mall.”

“Cultists like convenience and reasonable prices as much as anyone else,” I said. “I’m surprised no one mentioned it to me.”

“They probably thought you already knew,” Steve said. “In most places it would be big news. This town has a very high turnover rate. Anyway, I can offer you more money to try again, and to contact the dead men and ask them what happened.”

“Would their families be okay with that?”

“Their families are demanding
something
be done. One of them found out that we’d hired a psychic.”

I thought about it. Sparks did the real communicating, and there was no guarantee he’d feel like passing anything on. It was a chance to make money; however, and I’d been asked . . .

“I’ll need to be with one of the corpses to do a reading,” I said. “On one condition, none of the relatives can be there.” I really, really didn’t need that kind of drama. Don’t get me wrong, I do my share of talking to people’s dead relatives, I just have two firm policies: they have to have been dead at least five years and I won’t provide any personal messages.

I can’t provide personal messages anyway. Specters give me a combination of sights and sounds that convey the message they want me to receive. If I did hear something that sounded like a message from beyond the grave I would assume it was due to creative editing from a particularly clever specter. As to the waiting period, whether they understand my limitations or not, the recently bereaved are a nightmare to deal with. They’re either furious with me when I don’t tell them what they want to hear, or I do tell them something they want to hear and they latch onto me as if I were the Second Coming of Christ Himself. The worst part is that people who are grieving are often in major denial about their ability, or inability, as the case may be, to remain rational and composed in public. I instituted my current policy after my second screaming graveside meltdown. Even when the relatives meet my requirements, I don’t do it often, mainly because few people who want to talk to their deceased loved ones are hoping for forgotten PINs or secret recipes.