C.E. Murphy - Demon Hunts

It wasn't laughter. It was a raven, sitting on Sheila MacNamarra's headstone. The grave was still open, shining casket a black gleam under the dull sky. The raven tipped forward, peering into the hole, and gave another one of its laughlike caws.

That had not happened at the funeral. I edged forward, somewhere between relieved that this wasn't just a miserable dream and worried that it was a portent of some kind. The raven cawed again, then sprang into the air, wings whispering as he flew away into the winter sky.

Wailing followed him, a screech of metal tearing, and it rendered the clouds bloody and red.

I woke up far more weary than I'd been when I went to bed.

Wednesday, December 21, 5:19 A.M.

I couldn't shake the dream, so I just got up. I was meeting Mandy early anyway, although not quite five-thirtyin-the-morning early. Still, finding breakfast and taking a shower seemed better than lying wide-eyed in bed trying to read meaning into haunted dreams.

Truth was, I didn't think it needed that much interpretation. No banshee had cried at my mother's funeral, but with the murders a few months later, and everything I'd learned about her then, I wasn't surprised there was an association. The raven's appearance seemed even less peculiar, especially with my power circle encounter the day before.

Reminded, and feeling a little foolish, I took a foil bag of Pop-Tarts up to the roof of my building and put it on one of the heating vents. "Here you go, Raven. Shiny food. Thank you for getting me out of that psychic snowstorm yesterday." I patted the bag and, feeling even more foolish, retreated to my apartment.

Mandy Tiller swung by to pick me up about a quarter after six, which really meant she lugged a backpack up to my apartment and examined my winter gear. My boots, which were police-issue for winter wear, passed muster, but she looked dismayed at the rest of what I thought qualified as outdoor gear.

"Jeans are out. Cotton's no good for keeping warm. I thought that might be the case, so I brought extras. They should fit pretty well, you're a little taller but I think I'm bulkier?"

I said, "In the thigh, anyway," before realizing that might be insulting. Mandy only nodded, though, and unzipped the backpack to reveal what looked like two-thirds of the stock from the store she worked in. She peeled a pair of leggings out and tossed them to me, grinning at my expression.

"They expand. Really. I know they look like they won't fit a skinny thirteen-year-old, but I wear them all the time." Disconcertingly, she peeled her waistband down to show me the pair of leggings she wore under her pants, then let the pants slide back up. "They wick sweat away. I've got a long-sleeved shirt for you, too. Do you have any sweaters? Wool sweaters?"

Half an hour later I was securely bundled in more layers than I knew could fit on a single human being, and was somehow still only carrying only slightly more bulk than I typically did. I wriggled my toes inside liner socks inside wool socks inside my boots and chortled. "This is kind of cool."

Mandy got a sly look. "If you think it's cool already, you've got the heart of an outdoorsman. We're going to have fun today. Ever been snowshoeing?"

I said, "No," fascinated, and her sly look got even craftier.

"Yeah," she said again. "This'll be fun."

Except for the part where we're trying to lure a killer to us, I didn't say and tromped outside after her.

We took a ferry across Puget Sound, both of us getting out of Mandy's SUV to lean into what was, with all the cold weather gear we were wearing, merely a bracing wind. I'd had my filling breakfast of pastries, but she threw me a ham sandwich and a protein bar, which I ate obediently, figuring there was no point in tagging along after an expert if I didn't take her advice. "You do a lot of walking, right?" she asked as we got back into her car. "A five-mile trail isn't going to kill you?"

"I did more when I was a patrol cop, but I should be okay as long as you don't expect me to climb mountains."

"Only a little one," she promised cheerfully. "If you were really outdoorsy I'd bring you on a much harder hike, farther out. From what I know about the people who've died, most of them would be found on the tough stuff, not on Hurricane Hill. I'm hoping it's enough to draw him out." She gave me a sideways glance and asked the question I'd been expecting all along: "So are you like a black belt? I've never heard of cops going out alone to set themselves up as bait. Don't they usually at least have backup?"

"You're my backup." And I hadn't exactly cleared this stunt with Morrison. "I'm not a black belt, but I have a kind of…profiling thing with people like this. A way to fight that most people don't."

"And you can be sure he'll go after you and not me?"

I found myself studying her awhile before answering. "You're very brave," I said eventually. "You must be, or you wouldn't be out here offering to help me with only the bare bones of the situation explained to you."

She went quiet awhile, too, as we drove up into the park. "Maybe. Maybe I'm a little stir-crazy, too. I haven't been out hiking in weeks, and I promised Jake we could go out during Christmas break? That's not happening if there's still a psychotic cannibal out there. So that's some of it. And some of it is that the Hollidays never ask for anything. Melinda's incredible, with all those kids and the volunteer time she puts in at the school and the extracurricular activities she helps chaperone…so I thought if I could do this, it would be a good thing?" She made a lot of should-be statements into questions, like she was seeking reassurance about her opinions and commentary, and I wondered if she was even aware of it. I figured it wouldn't go over well if I called her out on it, though, and she went on breathlessly. "Besides, you're cops. Decent people help the police when they can."

"I take it back," I said. "You're not just brave. You're also awesome." Mandy flashed a smile, and I went back to her original question, figuring she'd earned an answer. "I can't promise he'll go after me instead of you, but I can promise he's not going to get his teeth into you, and I'm ninety-nine percent certain he'll lose interest in you once I start my thing."

"Which you're not going to explain?"

"I'd rather not until it's over." And only then if I had to. I didn't want to detail how I could build a shield of my willpower and surround someone else with it, or how in psychic terms I was a much tastier morsel than your average bear. Mandy gave me a careful look, but nodded, and I turned my attention to the park's winter-wonderland cascade of snow and trees. "You know I've never been out here?"

"Too many people haven't. We're going up to the Hurricane Ridge visitor's center and we'll head out from there. Hurricane Hill's all paved, not that you can tell right now? So it shouldn't be too bad a walk. Besides, families will have probably broken the trail already. The parks aren't advertising that outdoorsmen are being slaughtered." The SUV gave a sigh when we reached the visitor's center and settled down into the new snow covering the parking lot. We got out into a wind brisk enough to make my eyes water, and I laughed.

"Can I change my mind now?"

"You'll be fine. You're dressed for it." Mandy took snowshoes from the vehicle's back end and got me into them, then made me stomp around the parking lot like Bigfoot. I felt like a kid borrowing her dad's shoes, and caught myself making crunching noises to accompany the squeak of snow compressing under my feet. In almost no time we were on our way up the hill toward the distant ridge.

The sky had turned gray, then gradually clearer as we'd driven, and some minutes into our hike Mandy turned abruptly and said, "Look."