Warlock Wolf / Bring The Night / Chapter 11

With teeth-gritting effort he kept his trigger finger at bay—he wanted to blast, wanted to loose the magazine, empty it, flush the putrid smell of sulfur with the acrid smell of gun smoke, drown out the insect buzz with the tinkling brass patter of ejected shells. But he was in control now, eyes glued and shooting laser-beam focus across the room.

A shadow flashed, and he knew it was a rat. How would he report this shooting to the Sheriff’s office, let them know the brand-new F.B.I. agent emptied his gun into a country rat taking refuge from the winter’s cold…? That was the kind of shame that could last a decade, if he was stuck in this New Hampshire town for ten more years, every time he walked into the diner he knew there’d be snickering. So his hands flexed and squeezed on the hard feel of the Glock, but he didn’t shoot. His heart hammered but his breath was steady, Slowly, the pistol lowered to his thigh.

There was nothing left to do but to call it in.

But as his hand slipped into his coat pocket to retrieve his phone, there was another hissing mewl from the hobby horses’ direction, two of them knocking over and clattering to the concrete, and bursting into the light, lumbering from side-to-side in an unsteady gait (but at frighteningly fast speed) was another doll the size of a toddler.

He let out a growling shriek, couldn’t help jumping, recoiling, taking two steps back with his feet leaping right off the concrete floor. As he scrambled back, the thing came at him fast and relentless. His testicles climbed up inside his body, and a terror crept up his back thinking how this thing knew his vitals and wanted to destroy them. The heel of his shoe tripped against a heavy metal block and he fell backward, somersaulting, getting himself right on his knees and elbows.

But the doll was fast and aggressive and on him, face to face and so fucking close. As he jumped up, he remembered Lizzy saying the gun would’ve done him no good, anyway.

It latched onto him—a fully realized and brought-to-life sentinel here to protect the toymaker’s goodies. It wrapped hard plastic arms around one of his shins, and he kicked at it, struck it with the heel of the Glock. The thing couldn’t get purchase on the slippery wool of his suit leg, got knocked away and scattered to the floor.

One solution: get the fuck out, close the door, seal this thing inside and wait for a red-headed beauty with a magic sword to show up. He bolted between the metal shelving in time to see the rectangle of snowy light ahead narrow to a sliver then close with a solid sound of metallic doom. Something had closed the door . . . 

Instead of rushing for the door and fighting to open it, he grabbed the closest set of metal shelving and climbed it like a ladder. There was a clatter below him, and he looked down to see the doll launch itself after him but miss, bounce off the shelves and fall to the floor. And then he was almost up, pulling with his arms and pushing with his legs.

Only when he made it to the top, another doll greeted him. A grinning, cherubic apple-cheeked little Victorian lady with pigtails and a bonnet. Her mouth opened and closed in a sharp clack.

He shimmied aside, hands shuffling on the metal edge and knocking bric-à-brac down to the floor, the whole shelving unit wobbling and banging under the weight of his frantically moving body. The doll moved to intercept him, the little girl’s mouth clapping and nipping like a beak. He hoisted himself onto the top shelf, knowing what he would do.

The girl doll whomped against his body and he felt a pinching on his side, it’s small doll mouth biting down on him under his coat and suit jacket, somehow the evil thing slipping underneath. He lashed out with an elbow but missed, standing, teetering at the very top of the eight foot tall metal shelf. The little girl clung to his suit coat, snagged in it. He struggled the coat off his arms and wrapped her inside, throwing the bundle hard with both hands, hurtling her to the floor below.

Right away, he jumped, arms stretched overhead, grabbed onto the rafter and pulled himself up into the ceiling. Now he was twenty feet over the floor, clinging for life while two devil dolls hissed and jumped around below. He eased himself up to sit with his ass in the V of the hard metal supports, almost folded in two with his head touching the metal sheet ceiling. He was breathing hard, but he couldn’t help laughing. They were down there, and they were evil, and they wanted his blood. Both of them now working in unison, looking at each other, maybe trying to figure out how they would get him. They began to climb the shelves. The gun was tucked in its holster, and he thought of withdrawing and taking a few pot shots, but knew it be wasted.

Instead, he withdrew his phone from his pants pocket, glad he hadn’t left it in his coat.

A list of contacts was given to him before he arrived in the state of New Hampshire, a digital file sent to him by Amy’s father. Most of the data on the New Hampshire occult office were kept by Otterman, but Amy’s father had said Otterman wasn’t what you would call tech savvy. Everything would be on paper in Otterman’s office. It was his job when he arrived to organize the files into something digital and send it back to the branch. But at least he had in his phone the one number he thought to call right now. Thumb-swiping, he stopped on P—Primrose college. The girls’ college. He tapped it, listen to the ring. Under his dangling feet, the dolls hissed at each other, climbing one shelf, then the next. Working their way to the top. Someone on the other end picked up.

“Flowers of Eden,” the voice said.

He said, “Flowers of what?”

“Who’s calling?”

“It’s Black. Agent Black. From the F.B.I.”

The voice on the other end was male and dry, probably hard to humor. It said, “Hold, please.”

Below, the dolls were arranging a strategy. Hissing and clacking, their stiff little bodies trundling around on the top shelf looking for ways to get him. They had trouble looking up, and when they did, they had to bend their knees and it made them look comically stiff.

Music played in his ear, the girls college putting him on hold with classical music of some kind. A harp and a piano. Very classy.

The dolls were jumping, looking to see if they could make the distance. They had no dexterity, barely making it inches off the ground.

A click and bang in his ear, someone fumbling with the phone. Then, clear as day, the voice of a woman. “Hello, Agent Black, I’ve been expecting your call.” It was rich and frail at the same time somehow. And here in New Hampshire he’d been expecting some sort of Yankee twang. Some of that old northeastern vernacular. This voice was rich with southern hospitality.

He said, “I’ve been meaning to call—”

The dolls seemed to be working together in unison now, one climbing on the other’s back. They were going to pull that old trick, maybe sneak into an R-rated movie later if they could just find a big enough overcoat. For some reason he was laughing again.

The voice said, “I sure am glad to hear you in such good spirits, young Agent Black. Now I was afraid that I didn’t get the chance to meet you last night, and I had ever so wanted to. I was hoping you would call because I’d love to meet you. Perhaps later today you could come by and we can sit for some tea. I usually like to sit in the conservatory around three. How does that sound to—”

He had to interrupt: “Hey, real quick, I’m not calling for that. I know I should come by, things’ve been crazy since I landed.”

“You’re not afraid of us, are you?”

Afraid of them? Right now he needed them.

It had him laughing again, below him two toys that wanted him to be dead and trying to figure out how they were going to make it happen. And while he was safe up in these rafters, he thought maybe it wasn’t too long before they figured something out. His fingers started to tingle with the beginnings of fright. He said, “Do you have a way of getting someone to me?”

“Oh? You calling for business, Agent Black?”

“Yes, indeed, I am,” he said, straightening his legs out now in case they somehow launched themselves high enough with sudden ferocity, latched onto his ankle or grabbed his shoes.

Tone rich with charming dry humor, the woman asked, “What seems to be the trouble now?”

“I’ve just run into some difficulty—much like last night’s. I don’t know what I should say on the phone, but I would appreciate it if you could send those girls and tell them to bring that sword thing again.”

“Where are you?” Whe-aah yeww in that Southern drawl.

“I’m up Route 9, you go north to Old Matheson Road then onto Royal Armbruster. There’s a piece of property there,” and he explained to her where he was.

The woman asked: “Is it another dead body?”

“Not yet. But it could be mine if they don’t get here fast enough.”