Never Fear (56 page)

He dropped his uncle’s medical bag and
ducked away from Gideon and Antoine. Making sure his path would
take him right by the detective, he took off at full speed toward
the body bags, screaming “Daddy” at the top of his
lungs.

“
Whoa, lad, slow down.
What’s the matter?” Sure enough the detective stepped in front of
him to block his way.

On command, Lewis began to bawl his
eyes out.

“
That’s my daddy.” Lewis
called upon all the anguish he had felt at his father’s death to
sell it.

“
What’s your daddy’s
name?” The detective was dour, but there was genuine concern there.
Lewis’ plan would work.

“
Joe. Joe King.” Sometimes
Lewis was too clever for his own good.

“
Then that’s not your
daddy. Now why would you think it was?”

“
He works here. I haven’t
been able to find him all morning.”

“
Well, if I was your
daddy, I’d need a drink after seeing a sight like this. He’s likely
at the saloon and will be home later. Best if you go home and wait
for him there.”

“
Okay. I’m sorry, sir. I
was just scarred it might be him.” Lewis reduced the waterworks to
a light sob and let his teary, eye contact work its
magic.

Feeling awkward and unsure of what to
do, the detective bent down and gave Lewis a hug to reassure him.
Lewis took the opportunity to carefully slip his hands into the
man’s breast pocket and remove his notebook. When the detective
broke the hug, he was none the wiser. Lewis rubbed his eyes dry and
thanked the man for both his knowing and unknowing
assistance.

“
Thank you, sir, I feel
better now.”

“
I’m glad to hear it. Run
along then, lad. This is no place for a boy your age.”

Lewis did as he was told. He was well
away from the crowd of gawkers by the time Gideon and Antoine
caught up with him.

“
What the devil was that
all about?”

“
You wanted a look at the
detective’s notebook.” Lewis produced the notebook from his pocket
and handed it to his uncle.

“
Impressive,” said
Antoine.

“
Most,” said Gideon with a
nod of approval. “Now let’s see what we have here. The victim is
Walter Jackson. He comes in early to get the smelter heated up for
the day. He was found when the first shift came in. Or rather, his
devoured, mostly to the bone, legs were found in the front office,
then his arm by the changing station, and finally the rest of him
by the smelter. Ripped open like the others. Missing most his
internal organs along with his eyes and his tongue. The detective’s
current working theory is animal attack.”

“
He was a good man,”
Antoine bowed his head and said a silent prayer. “Der is nah’ting
der we didn’t know already.”

“
No there isn’t.” Gideon
must have seen the disappointment on Lewis’ face because he quickly
added, “Not right now at least, but every bit of information helps.
This was a good get, Lewis. Well done.”

“
What do we do now?” he
asked bypassing his uncle’s patronizing remark.

“
Now we search all of
Uptown and pray we get lucky,” was Gideon’s uninspired
response.

And so they hunted. They spent hours
walking the streets, checking every building and alley, canvasing
the neighborhood, looking for any sign of the foul, murdering beast
they had set loose upon the world.

They were still patrolling well after
sunset when a Creole woman came running down the street in a fit of
hysteria.

“
A demon! A demon from
hell! It killed him! Ripped him apart. Loa! Loa!!” The words came
rushing out of the woman in a jumble, barely audible between
sobs.

“
Calm, sweet sister. It
will be alright. Where did ya see de beast?” Antoine spoke in a
melodic, soothing voice, but the woman refused to be slowed by
their questions. She continued to scream and flee, leaving her
direction of origin as their only clue.

They hurried toward the source of the
woman’s fright. Will must have sensed his fear. The Border collie
was never more than a foot away, constantly searching the shadows
for threats to his master. Maybe that was why the pup was the first
to find the demon’s latest meal.

Lewis was horrified to find yet
another mangled corpse, but was more than a little relieved to find
the creature already gone. From the looks of it, the victim had
been a lamplighter in the middle of his evening rounds. The man’s
equipment and the lack of light on half the street made that much
obvious. Faced with his imminent doom, he had run back toward the
light, perhaps hoping it might provide some discouragement to his
attacker. Or maybe he was just following that primal instinct that
made human beings identify darkness as danger and light as safety.
Whatever his motivation, he did not make it far.

The man had been slashed open just
like the others. His throat was torn out, and of his limbs, only
the left arm remained attached to the body. Bits of flesh and bone
were scattered about like debris from a sunken ship. Blood pooled
beneath the body, the dark red looking black underneath the
moonlight. This man’s death had not been a humane one. Indeed it
had been about as horrible a death as Lewis could imagine anyone
ever having.

Gideon cautiously stepped around the
various pieces of corpse and bent down low to examine what remained
of the man’s upper torso.

“
The teeth marks are
different here than on the other three bodies. Those were
definitely human or at least a close approximation. These are more
canine in nature,” was his uncle’s assessment.

“
Dogs, or maybe der be
more den one creature?” Antoine put forth as an explanation. The
thought of more than one of these horrible monsters roaming the
streets sent shivers down Lewis’ spine.

“
No, the attack patterns
are too similar, and if more than one of these things was loose, I
think we’d have seen more signs of it at the house. There were no
attacks during the day, but then the sun goes down and another body
shows up.” Gideon paced as he considered the problem. He stopped
when he reached a conclusion. “It’s hibernating during the day,
using its victims as food to fuel some sort of
metamorphosis.”

“
Dat is a long leap,
Professor.” The incredulity in Antoine’s tone was light, but it was
there.

“
Perhaps, but it fits the
evidence. There’s nothing else we’re going to learn here.” Gideon
nodded to the police officers who were beginning to arrive on the
scene. “Let’s leave the police to their work while we tend to
ours.”

Casually they moved away from the body
and melted back into the gathering crowd of onlookers. When they
were clear of the crowd, they found themselves standing on the edge
between the lighted streets behind them and the darkened path
before them. If Lewis hadn’t been so completely terrified, he might
have found the setting rather literary.

“
No lamplighter ta finish
de rounds.” From the tone in Antoine’s voice Lewis could tell he
wasn’t the only one who was ill at ease, not that a little bit of
nighttime would faze his uncle.

“
That’s unfortunate. You’d
think there would be redundancies for things like this. Lewis, hand
me my bag.”

Lewis did as he was told. His uncle
pulled out three lengths of cloth and a thermos. Carefully he
soaked each piece of cloth with whatever liquid the thermos
contained. Gideon then broke off three lengths of wood from a
nearby tree and wrapped the ends with the soaked cloth. He handed
one to each of them and used his lighter to light each one in turn.
At the end of two minutes’ time they each held a brightly burning
torch. “I’ll take point, Antoine guard our rear, Lewis stay between
us and stay close.”

As they moved into the unlit section
of the city, Lewis could feel the darkness increase around them
despite the fire they held in their hands. The blackness weighed on
him, an outward sign of the shadows that now marred his own soul.
Envy was one the deadly sins, and his envy of a mirage had cost
four people their lives already. Maybe his mother had been right to
get as far away as possible from him. Maybe he really was good for
nothing.

A woman’s high pitched scream cut
through the night, freezing the party in its tracks.

“
Whe...” Lewis started to
ask where the scream had come from, but held his tongue at Gideon’s
raised hand.

Another scream came, cut off abruptly
by some unknown horror.

“
This way,” was all his
uncle said as they rushed toward the cry for help, knowing they
would not get there in time.

A few minutes of sprinting through a
maze of side streets brought them to two partially consumed
corpses. To Lewis they had the look of a young couple, or at least
the remnants of one. The man lay face down in the street. His spine
had been removed, and most of his right side had been eaten away.
His gnawed-upon legs had been haphazardly discarded a few feet
away.

The woman looked to be lying face-down
as well until Lewis got closer and saw that she was in fact
right-side up. It was simply her head that had been twisted all the
way round. Her rib cage had been ripped open in the same fashion as
Mrs. Dunham’s, though her insides were not entirely missing but
rather lay next to her, half eaten.

Lewis looked at the scene and made a
mental inventory of the items surrounding the bodies. He tried to
stay cold and detached like his uncle, pushing down his guilt and
focusing on the problem at hand. He could deal with the additional
blemishes on his soul later, after they’d stopped this demon.
Somewhere inside him he registered the fact that he no longer
wretched automatically at a sight such as this, and that worried
him immensely.

“
It appears we interrupted
the beast. On your guard. It may still be lurking about.” Gideon
emphasized his point by drawing his pistol. Lewis imitated his
uncle, though he doubted he’d be much good with his in this
light.

A shadow moved in the corner of his
eye. Lewis turned, raising his pistol, but saw nothing
there.

“
Top hat, bonnet,
cigarette case, lighter, and a walking cane. That’s it. Nothing
that tells us why these people. Damn it all to hell I’m missing
something.” Gideon’s voice was tight and full of rage. Lewis wanted
to tell his uncle that this was his fault, but shame stopped him
from confessing his role in all of this.

Again something stirred at the edge of
his vision. Again Lewis turned with his pistol raised only to find
nothing waiting for him. He took a few steps forward to be certain,
but his torch revealed nothing but an empty sidewalk. His guilty
conscience had him jumping at shadows.

“
Lewis, what de ya see?”
Antoine asked.

“
Nothing. Just a figment
of my imagination.” He started to walk back toward his companions
when Will began barking in earnest. The collie’s warnings were soon
joined by a deep, guttural growling noise.

“
Down boy!” screamed
Antoine as something leaped out of the darkness at Lewis. The shape
was intercepted in midair by Will. The pair fell back into the
night. A few seconds of barking and growling and the collie burst
back into the light with a shadowy figure hot on his tail. Gunshots
rang out as Gideon unloaded into the figure with his
pistol.

The shots did nothing to slow the
creature down. Indeed, the only evidence that it had been hit at
all were the bits of blood that flew from it as Gideon’s bullets
struck flesh.

It was only a few paces from Lewis
now.

The beast snarled with its wolfish
snout, its beady, scarlet eyes burning with hate.

Lewis raised his pistol to fire, but
his finger froze on the trigger. Fear and guilt gripped him. He
didn’t want to die, but maybe it was the fate he deserved for
unleashing this demon on the world.

At the last possible moment Antoine
stepped between Lewis and the beast. The creature’s teeth sunk into
the large man’s arm, causing him to drop his torch. Lewis cowered
as Antoine brought his own pistol to bear, firing multiple rounds
into the creature’s belly.

The beast released its grip on Antoine
as it howled in rage and pain. Antoine’s dropped torch flickered on
the ground next to the beast, alternatingly draping their foe in
darkness and light.

The beast stood upright like a man,
just short of six feet in height. The demon’s skin was a patchwork
of oozing blood-red bits and charred, cracked pieces as black as
coal. Its hands were closer to claws in description and it
possessed long, spindly talons for feet. Blood dripped from its
teeth and ran down its naked form. Lewis didn’t know if this was
the Devil, but if it wasn’t, it was certainly one of his
spawn.

Gideon had reloaded his pistol and
wasted no time in unleashing another torrent of gunfire. The beast
let out an unearthly scream and took off into the night.

“
Report!” barked
Gideon.

“
Alive,” came Antoine’s
rueful call.

“
Lewis?” His uncle’s voice
had a note of worry to it. Lewis was still too stunned by the
events of the last few minutes to find his voice.