Blood Red (49 page)

“What the fuck?”

“Precisely, Detective. That was just a little water. Imagine what I could do if I decided to get creative.”

Pee Wee made an inquisitive gesture, wanting to know if he should attempt an arrest. Boyd nodded slightly and the man grabbed Soulis by the arm, wrenching backward.

Soulis let him, his smile getting a touch more pronounced.

“Must we, Detective Boyd?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing or how, but it stops now.”

“No.” Blackness crept from the man’s skin, spilling from him like heat from a fire, engulfing his entire body. Boyd took aim, uncertain what to do. He couldn’t just fire; he’d hit a trooper. The darkness expanded outward until Soulis was completely hidden. A heartbeat later it began to contract, collapsing inward until it simply vanished. Soulis was gone with it, leaving Pee Wee holding the cuffs he’d already wrapped around the man’s wrists. The cuffs were still closed.

“Shit on this!” Boyd looked around and saw Danny doing the same thing. He had a migraine starting and he was not amused by the disappearing trick.

“Where the hell did he go?” Pee Wee was having a little trouble with the notion that his perp had just vanished.

“Well you’re the one that had his hands on the guy, you tell me!” Boyd glared.

“Screw you! You saw it too! He just disappeared.” The trooper didn’t look at all happy about the turn of events. He looked scared (maybe) and pissed off (definitely) but happy wasn’t a part of his expression.

“Let’s just all stop freaking out here.” Leave it to Danny to try placating the troopers.

“Dennison, call HQ and tell them we need backup. This is fucked up beyond all repair,” Pee Wee called out and one of the troopers with him headed back for his car.

The lightning bolt stopped him. The world turned brilliantly white and Boyd covered his eyes as the flash went off. The explosion of thunder shook the bones in his body and half deafened him, leaving his ears ringing even as his eyes tried to adjust.

When he could see again, Trooper Dennison was a burnt ruin on the ground. His badge was glowing white hot and his pistol looked like it had melted into its holster.

Most of Boyd’s body felt like he’d been fried alive. He knew he wasn’t deeply injured, but the current had carried far enough to send his nervous system into a frenzy. He could barely get any part of his body to respond to the simplest commands.

The little girl was crying her eyes out. He couldn’t blame her. Danny reached over and pulled the girl into his arm, settling her on his hip. She wrapped herself around him like a constrictor, her legs and hand pulling him as close as physically possible.

“You’re okay, sweetie. It’s all going to be okay.” He could just hear Danny’s words over the reverberations still bouncing around in his skull.

What the fuck are we dealing with here? This guy can’t be for real.
He had no doubt that somehow Soulis had caused the lightning.

The two state troopers ran to their fallen friend. He was dead; Boyd knew it as sure as he knew his name.

“Danny?”

“Yeah, Richie?”

“You hand Jayce over to the troopers.” He looked at Pee Wee. “Hey! You need to get this little girl home for me, all right?”

“What?” Pee Wee had been even closer to the blast and he was having a little trouble hearing anything.

Jayce was clinging to Danny, and when she heard the plan she started crying again. The kid couldn’t make up her mind.

Before another word was spoken, both of the troopers ran for their cars. He couldn’t blame them; this was the weirdest shit he’d ever encountered.

Jason Soulis was standing in his front yard, staring down at them. His smile was darker than before and even through the heavy fog, he could tell the man was looking right at him. He hadn’t been there two seconds before, Boyd would have bet on it.

“Are we finishing this, Detective Boyd? Or are you going to leave this alone?”

Boyd looked at Danny and Danny looked back.

Both of them looked toward Soulis and pointed their pistols.

“Jason Soulis, you are under arrest.” To make his point very clear, Richard Boyd opened fire and so did his partner.

Hunter Williamson had been a state trooper for almost two decades. He liked the job and he loved the people he worked with. Stewart Dennison had been with the force for eight years, and he had been a good man.

So he was a little upset by the notion that a man who could disappear at will and cause rain storms just by thinking about it had just killed a good friend.

There was no denying what he had seen with his own eyes. The man he’d had in cuffs was responsible for what had just happened; he had no doubt of that at all.

The only question was what to do about it.

He looked to Martinez and saw that the other man felt exactly the same way.

“I don’t think we’re going to stop this guy with bullets.”

“I don’t think we’re gonna stop him at all, but I’m not letting him get away with that shit.” Martinez was practically screaming, but Williamson could just make out the words.

“I’m gonna run his ass down.”

Martinez nodded.

The local cop said something, but he couldn’t make out the words. Williamson called out for him to repeat himself, but the man looked away to where the murdering fuck he’d tried to cuff was standing on the lawn and looking like he was having the best time he’d ever had outside of sex.

He climbed over the remains of his friend and back into his car. The engine had stalled thanks to the lightning, but it started up just fine. He didn’t bother with seatbelts or any of his usual precautions; he just aimed the cruiser and gunned the engine. The engine roared and the tires screamed and the car just barely missed hitting a fire engine as he drove over the curb and through the stream of the fire hydrant that was spraying down the neighborhood.

Behind him, Martinez was already rolling, gathering speed. The grass was soaked through and the car slewed sideways, sending up a thick wave of ruined lawn and mud before the tires caught properly.

Then he was moving and fast, gathering a proper head of steam as he aimed the cruiser at the sick bastard who claimed he’d caused all of the devastation.

The two local cops fired repeatedly at their target and Jason Soulis took a staggering step backward as his chest exploded. The smile was gone from his face, and he was falling to the ground. All the better.

Williamson compensated for the change in position and ran over the man. The car shuddered and jumped as it hit the prone form, and Williamson made sure to gun the engine even more. He felt the tires sliding through bone and gristle as he rocketed over the body.

Martinez was next and he aimed well and true, the front tires rolling straight for the man’s head and legs.

He was watching in the rearview mirror when the other trooper’s car slammed to a complete halt. He was still watching, stupefied, as the vehicle was thrown through the air, rolling end over end until it crashed into the closest fire engine.

The crushed, bloodied body of Jason Soulis stood up. His ribs were caved in and he still had a massive hole in his chest, but the freak was standing up.

Williamson hit the brakes, switched into reverse and started backing toward the thing that was now looking at the two local cops. He gained speed, swerving slightly as he adjusted to backward driving, and made sure his aim was as perfect as possible.

Soulis turned his way and braced his body. The car hit, the rear end crumpling inward and the rear window exploding on impact. Williamson was flung backward and then forward in his seat. His head slammed into the steering wheel and the air bag deployed, punching him in the face at high velocity.

As soon as it had done its job, the cushion began to deflate and Williamson helped it along, terrified. Nothing should have been able to stop a fucking car like that! Nothing!

He climbed out as the thing behind him lunged, driving hands through the roof of the car in an effort to reach him.

Soulis snarled, his face as far from human as it could be while sharing the same basic features. He looked at the man in absolute terror, his mind taking in the details and then refusing to acknowledge what he was seeing. The wounds were gone. The man’s clothing had been blasted apart, and tire tracks were clearly visible, but the white skin underneath was perfectly fine, unmarred and supported by what was obviously a whole ribcage.

He was still trying to work that out in his head when Soulis grabbed hold of him.

Pee Wee was screaming, and Danny was, too. Jayce was crying, and Boyd was pretty sure he had a few tears coming from his own eyes, but he couldn’t tell anymore. There was too much going on and no time to take it all in.

Jason Soulis held the state trooper up by one hand and climbed off the wreckage of the police car. He was grinning ear to ear now, and walking toward Boyd and Danny with absolute confidence in his abilities.

Williamson was thrashing like a freshly hooked carp and making faces that came pretty close to matching a fish’s expressions at that moment. Soulis walked closer and stopped five feet away.

“How much is he worth to you, Detective?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean he can live or die depending on what you say.”

Boyd had his weapon aimed at the man. He wasn’t stupid.

“What? I’m supposed to trade you for him?”

“Something like that.”

“He’s a cop. He knew the risks.”

Williamson was still looking ready to jump out of his own skin, but he was also reaching for his service revolver. God love him.

“You can still walk away from this. I genuinely like you.”

“You can’t. I bet if I hit you in the head enough times you won’t go getting all better.”

Danny was doing his thing again, looking far away and keeping his aim on Soulis.

“It’s possible. Are you willing to take that risk?”

“Danny over there is ready. So am I.”

“What about your little friend?” He looked over to where Jayce was protected against Danny’s side. “If we call this done, I will let her live.”

“For all I know, she’s already an orphan. Maybe she’d want to be with her family.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a man as stubborn as you.” He had more to say, but just at that moment, Pee Wee opened up and started firing bullets into his chest and head. Six bullets at point-blank range blew holes into the monster with the human face, and Boyd and Danny took that as their cue. Danny moved his hand ever so slightly and pulled the trigger. Jason Soulis’s left eye exploded. An instant later his right eye followed suit. The next bullet took off the top of his skull and the one after that blew his jaw away.

Boyd focused on his chest. He had four glazer shells left and he used every last one of them aiming for where the heart should be.

Jason Soulis took enough lead to blow his body into pieces. What remained of him fell down and stayed down.

Pee Wee fell too, screaming again and crab-walking backward away from the remains.

Boyd loaded his weapon again and stepped closer. He fired every round into the body. Danny stayed where he was trying to calm down the hysterical girl in his arm. Williamson scooted a bit further away and started vomiting.

Boyd stared down at the corpse and waited for something to happen. He wanted to see if what was left would grow back again. Finally, convinced that nothing was going to happen, he moved toward the squad car leaning against the fire engine. Maybe if he was lucky there would be a can of gas he could use to burn the remains.

“Richie!” Danny’s voice got his attention and he spun, ready to fire again. The fog was lifting, fading away, and as it did he saw them coming. The crows. He couldn’t begin to count how many there were. They filled the air around them, and Boyd did the only sensible thing and backed away. Danny was ahead of him in that department and Pee Wee was leaving the area as fast as he could while still puking.

The birds circled briefly and then landed on the remains of Jason Soulis. They attacked what was there violently, plucking and ripping at the flesh and cloth, tearing away cold pieces of flesh and eating them.

Danny held the little girl in his arms and made sure she didn’t see what was happening.

There were a lot of the black birds and they were hungry. By the time they were finished there was little to look at except for the ruined clothes Soulis had been wearing.

“Well. That was disgusting.” Danny’s voice was weak.

“Yeah.”

“Red Lady?”

“What the fuck do you think?”

“Red Lady.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

They left, not a one of them having any desire to stay for another moment.

The sun rose at the usual time, but it rose on a very different town than the one it had set on the night before.

Bodies littered the streets and lay scattered through several buildings as well. When they could finally get there, the state patrol vehicles rolled into Black Stone Bay and began cataloguing the damage.

The bodies of three priests were found at the Sacred Hearts Cathedral. They were found badly beaten, with their throats torn open. Someone had taken the time to write “Forgive them, Lord, they were only human” on the walls in the blood of the three men. Similar epitaphs were found in every single house of God in the town.

While the crimes were added to the list of damages inflicted, the details of the bloody notes were not made public. The matter of finding replacements for the priests, rabbis, ministers, and administrators of the various religious establishments was handled quietly and carefully. There might have been more scandal added to the issue, but with everything else that occurred that particular Halloween night and a few carefully worded comments from higher ups in the churches, the matter was left alone.