God of the Dead (Seasons of Blood #1): A dark paranormal crime thriller novel (14 page)

Outside, the rain continued to pour.

* * * * *

Logan peeled off his drenched trench coat and set it on a chair near the electric fireplace he’d turned on, hoping to dry it. After he visited AJ and the girl, whose name he
still
didn’t know, he had simply gone back to his room. He’d managed to procure it last night. There hadn’t been any vacancies, but he’d found a middle-aged man and his much younger mistress about to check in and had given them twice what they paid for the room. He took his .45 out of the shoulder holster to make sure it wasn’t wet and to dry it off if it was.

All this was done slowly, though, in a detached sort of way. All his mind and all his senses were trained on the boy upstairs. Being who he was, AJ sent out a kind of mental signal that very few people could pick up. It was like there was a homing device in his head.

Part of his thoughts also returned to the book as it was pivotal to their cause. He had lied to AJ and the girl, had said it would be much more difficult without the book. But if the other got His hands on it...well, they were all fucked. Not just
them
, but everyone, everything.

His assessment of the situation was a grim one. Everything hinged on the foresight AJ’s real father had with regard to who
he
was and who his son would someday be. The Next.

He was at least a little confident that the late Mr. Munroe had taken some sort of measure to ensure his son would get the book. Not once since this had all began centuries ago had the book and the knowledge in it failed to be passed down.

Of course, he also had to take into consideration the fact that the late Mr. Munroe’s life had been cut unexpectedly short by a car accident.

Then there was the letter; he had to hope what was contained in it was enough.

But right now it all looked so damn bleak, as if the day’s falling rain had managed to bleach all the hope from his very soul. But no matter how bad, how hopeless the situation might be, he had no choice but to fight with every fiber of his being. To step aside or to bow his head in defeat to an evil such as this would be perhaps a far worse sin than what he was fighting against. Logan sat back in his chair and began to wait. It was all he could do.

* * * * *

AJ had no idea how to get in touch with Logan. He had no idea why they had to have the book or what to do once they did (although, he assumed reading it would be a large part of it). It was now 2:15 P.M. He didn’t know how much time they had but nonetheless felt an unexplainable urgency. With each tick of the second hand time ran away from him, pulling some final apocalyptic event nearer and nearer, like a guillotine blade suspended over his head.

“We have to get our asses in gear. I’ve got to tell them about the book,” AJ said to Clover. Hand in hand, they walked out into the living room.

“So what’s up, junior?” John asked.

Then the door opened and the guard in the hall let in Steve Neilsen.

“Sit down, Steve. We need you to hear this too. It’ll save me the pain in the ass of telling you later,” John said. Steve pulled a chair over and sat. He looked around the room at them and then AJ began to speak.

John listened with an open mind. He believed what the kid was saying about the book, at least the fact that said book
did
exist. But what to make of it? He had assumed they could simply shoot the shit out of these things, these creepers, until they stopped coming after the kid, but this made more sense. They were dealing with something supernatural—a word John hated to use, but hadn’t been able to find a better one—so they would need something supernatural to stop it. AJ finished his story, telling how his parents had recently unearthed the book while dredging through the attic.

“Well, we can send someone up there ASAP--” Steve began to suggest. John shook his head as AJ vocalized the objection.

“I have to go,” he said simply. “Do you want to tell my parents why a book needs a police escort? I’m sure if you told them it could be the key to defeating the living dead they’d understand.”

John rubbed the fading bruises on his neck and chewed his cigar. The kid did have a point, though. They couldn’t run around telling everyone, not unless they wanted to get locked up where they made you write letters home in crayon because they were afraid of what you’d do with a pointed object.

“We won’t send you up there alone.”

“Good! I’m not too keen on the idea of a road trip right now. Tomorrow morning then?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” John said. “Quick question, though. How’d you come to find out about this
book
, and that we needed it? Don’t tell me you just kinda forgot about until now, kid. I hope you respect me too much for that.”

“Uh…” AJ rubbed the back of his neck and looked to Clover.

“Give it to him,” Clover said.

“Gimme what?” John asked.

AJ reached under his shirt and pulled the envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and held it out.

“He was here, wasn’t he?” John asked.

“Who?
”
Gomez asked.

AJ couldn’t meet John’s gaze; it was now all cop and like looking into the son. He took half a step forward and gestured toward John with the envelope.

“He just left,” Clover said.

“Who just left?” Gomez asked. “Aint nobody other than Steve and the room service guy been in or outta that door all day.”

“Gentlemen,” John said, taking the envelop from AJ. “I believe we’ve been visited by, what’s he calling himself?
Detective
Quidman, was it?”

“His name is Logan,” AJ said.

“He came through the window,” Clover said.

“What the fuck?” Gomez asked. “Your window? Your
fifth story
window?”

“Hang on,” John said, reaching out and touching Gomez’s shoulder. John stared down at the envelope, given to the kid by a man that had impersonated a cop and had shown up not only at two of the crime-scenes this case had so far created; the gas station, and the kid’s apartment, but also here, through the fifth-story window of a hotel room where no one but the people inside that room and maybe four other people knew they were. These things were strange enough, but these were not the considerations that had John feeling like he’d just been kicked in the back of the head.

No, what was getting to him was that his name was written on the envelope, and even more so, it was written in a hand he recognized.

Jin
, Lubbock thought, his mouth dry, his eyes seeming to burn.

John looked from the envelope to AJ, and back to the envelope again.

“The fuck is this?” John asked.

“I don’t, he just said to give it to you is all,” AJ said, taking a step back.

John pulled a less-than-regulation knife out of his pocket and flicked the short but brutal blade open and used it to cut through the envelope. Inside was a single folded sheet of thick cream-colored stationary paper. John removed it from the envelope and opened it.

In the top left hand corner, where he knew it would be, was a single square with the initials JM inside it, embossed into the stationary.

“What’s it say?” Steve asked.

Lubbock ignored him, swallowing hard as he read the letter.

John-

Hello, old friend. First, please know I tried to keep you out this as long as I could. I don’t know what the man that delivered this to you has done so far, only that during the normal course of things, I myself would likely have arrested him for them. Those rules no longer apply. This will go against every instinct you have, but you have to trust him. I know you remember my last case, and though I’m sure what you are now involved in is different in its own horrible way, I know it must be the same in ways that are even worse, or I wouldn’t be writing this. This is beyond law and order and chain of command and everything about life as you’ve come to know it. I don’t blame you for turning away toward the end of the Bowden case; it wasn’t your time. It was
my
time. This, John, now,
this
is your time, and you must not turn away. I know the man that delivered this letter only as Mr. Perish, but regardless of what he calls himself, or has called himself in the past, trust him, John. You need him. If you ever trusted me, and I know you did,
trust
him
.

Right now you are staring down the impossible. I know from personal experience how hard this is, how it seems the world is falling down around you like the backdrop on an old stage, but I ask you again; do not turn aside. Above all else,
trust him
. God speed, my friend, and good luck.

JM

John carefully folded the letter up, and put it back inside the envelope. He rubbed his eyes and then walked to the fireplace. He stared down at his name, written in his old friend’s hand, and then carefully fed the envelope and the letter inside into the fire.

“John?” Gomez said.

“What’d it say?” AJ asked.

John walked back across the room and sat down on the couch, then looked up at all of them in turn.

“Tomorrow morning, then,” John said.

Steve opened his mouth to speak but stopped when John held his hand up, shaking his head once, back and forth. John leaned back in the couch and chewed his cigar. Clover got a cigarette from AJ and Terrance Wills poured himself a cup of coffee.

Somewhere downstairs was a rattle of gunfire, sounding almost small and distant. The radios the uniformed cops had on their shoulders came to life, a distorted cacophony of static, screams, and gunfire.

John was on his feet immediately, his pistol in his hand. He shot a quick glance to Steve, who was also on his feet. Gomez had drawn his piece and backed AJ and Clover away from the door.

The two guards in the hall came in and all eyes turned to John for guidance. He had one moment of raw panic when he hated all of them for putting this weight on him, for so easily putting their lives in his pocket. It seemed he could feel the extraordinary weight of each of those lives on his chest, packed so tightly within him it left no room for his heart to beat or his lungs to breathe. The fire crackled and John recalled a line from the letter Jin had written him;
This, John, now,
this
is your time, and you must not turn away.

“Okay,” he said, drawing in a deep and shuddering breath, “Steve, Gomez, you come with me.” He turned and looked at the two guards. “One of you stay in the hall, one of you stay in here, and if anything, I mean any
fucking
thing
,
happens to either of those kids, you’ll have a lot more to worry about than you do right now. Understand?”

The two uniformed officers nodded.

“Then let’s move.” John led his men out into the hall. The door closed and AJ had never felt more alone in his life.

* * * * *

Logan was on his feet before the first blast sounded down the hall. He slung his shotgun into the shoulder harness and grabbed his pistol. There was another blast and he could hear the screams. His first instinct was to head toward the trouble, to stop it if he could. But not now, not here. His number one priority had to be The Next. He threw on his coat and went out into the hall. He still had to go toward the lobby in order to get to the stairs, and he passed a crowd in the hall that was fleeing in the opposite direction. He got to the stairwell door and peered quickly around the corner. What started as a glance turned into a stare. There were members of the dead, two of them. He watched them tear a lobby security guard’s arm completely off his body. A red splash hit the wall and the body collapsed. Logan entered the stairwell and began his ascent to the fifth floor.

* * * * *

The elevator dinged and the door slid open. The three police officers were backed to the sides, away from the open door. John peered out cautiously. He saw two undead about fifteen yards from the elevators, busy killing a hotel security guard. They watched in a horrid fascination as one of the guard’s arms was pulled off like a chicken wing. John led the others out of the elevator in standard two-by-one cover formation, securing cover behind two large, marble pillars on either side of the elevator.

“This is the police!” John yelled, peeking around the pillar at the nearest creeper. There was no way anyone could even pretend this creature was alive. There was almost no skin on his face, just rotted muscle and exposed skull. He howled and threw the body of the security guard to the ground, blood pulsing from the empty arm socket.

Lubbock looked to Steve. “We may have a serious problem here.”

* * * * *

Officer Nick Black was standing in the hall, as per Detective John Lubbock’s direct order, his back to the door and his gun drawn. He had been told in confidence what the situation was, that somehow the dead were up and walking. But he didn’t really believe it, did he? Shit no. There had to be a mistake of some kind, maybe even an explanation, because that shit just didn’t happen. He thought it was possible for someone to maybe
look
dead, sure. Crack addicts weren’t exactly the picture of good health. And there were people with diseases, too. Like leprosy (that was still around, right?) and that Ebola thing. That could make someone look dead. But for someone to actually be dead,
physically dead
, and get up, causing problems? Nope. At least, that was he kept telling himself until he saw what came lurching around the corner. It was shaped like a man, kind of, and had at some point been one, but now it was nothing short of a nightmare with legs and Freddy Krueger’s complexion. There were patches of flesh missing, with some flaps of dead skin hanging off the face. Long, stringy hair hung off what little scalp was left. As it drew nearer, Officer Nick Black realized that it had not once been a man, but a woman. It was wearing the last remnant of a burial dress and he could see the sagging lumps just above the stomach that had to have been breasts.