Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) Read online

  I’ll admit it; I screamed. When I turned around, a kindly old man dressed as a pastor was smiling at me benevolently.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in,” I told him.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I always forget how quiet this floor is. I should have said something earlier. I’m Pastor MacReady; I’m the pastor here.” He held out his hand for me to shake.

  “No, I’m just visiting,” I said after shaking his hand. “I thought I might attend Sunday’s service.” I hadn’t had any such thought, but what else do you say when confronted with a pastor? ‘I don’t care about your church; I was just killing time?’ Have fun burning in Hell for that one.

  “Excellent,” the pastor said. “I’ve just come in to work on my sermon for this week. It’ll be my take on ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.’ I thought it would be a good inspiration for the reenactment.” I looked back to the flyer.

  “Are you really going to reenact the battle of Jericho inside a church?”

  “Oh no! Mr. Whateley, the hotel owner, allows us to use the space behind the hotel for our reenactments. We’re going to go all out.”

  “Sounds exciting,” I said. I vaguely recalled the story of the battle of Jericho. It seemed ambitious for a reenactment. “Do you do this often?” He shook his head.

  “Just once a year. We try to pick a different scene every time. Something big enough that everyone in the church can participate.”

  “If everyone participates, who watches?”

  “Oh, there are other churches in our town,” he said chuckling. “And the Lord only knows what the tourist trap owners worship. There are plenty of nonbelievers in town as well.”

  “So this is a town wide event?”

  “Yes, but only Lutherans can participate directly.” He stared at me. “Are you a Lutheran, Mr. Windisle?”

  “I’ve gone to Lutheran services before,” I told him, “but I move around a lot. I tend to go to whatever church is available.”

  “Then will I see you on Sunday? My sermon won’t be boring, I assure you.” I didn’t see any reason not to. Maybe the building would be less intimidating when it was full of people.

  “You will if I’m still in town.”

  It began raining on my way back to the hotel. So much for the nice weather Cecilia Bishop had predicted.

  ***

  Fiona was less than thrilled to see the psychic cheese wasp.

  “I thought I’d got rid of them all,” she said, glaring at it. I shrugged.

  “There must be a dead one around here somewhere. I was hoping you’d help me find it and lay it to rest.” It buzzed around both of us, then zoomed into the kitchen.

  “It doesn’t seem to recognize me,” Fiona said.

  “I would have been surprised if it had. Shades have no memory of their own lives. They just remember the kind of creature they were.”

  “So, if you made a shade of the dead construction workers they wouldn’t be able to tell you what happened to them?”

  “You heard about that?”

  “Earl is a good friend of mine. He likes to chat.” I’d noticed that. He’d told me everything except what I’d wanted to know when I’d spoken to him.

  “I use different methods to get information out of the dead,” I told her, “but I’ve never created a human shade, so I couldn’t say for sure.”

  “It would be convenient,” she said. “Anyway, I roasted a chicken and made pecan pie, so I hope you’re hungry.”

  As we ate, she asked me what I thought of the town, and I told her what I’d been up to.

  “Pastor MacReady is doing a hellfire and damnation sermon?” she asked. “I’ll believe that when I hear it.”

  “Is it not his style?”

  “God bless him, he’s a good man and he tries, but if you’re in a confrontation with serious evil he is not your man. He’s been the pastor longer than I’ve been alive, and I don’t think he’s raised his voice once the whole time. He probably thinks the Sermon on the Mount is too strongly worded.”

  “But he doesn’t mind that you’re having a mock war.”

  “It’s an interesting part of the Bible,” she said. “He’s serious about biblical education. Plus, we’ve been doing reenactments in the swamp since before there was a town.”

  The food was delicious. I wished I could have eaten more. As it was, I wasn’t looking forward to going back into the attic. That was probably where the cheese wasp had died, though.

  I was right. Its body had been embedded in plaster. I had to dig it out before I could lay it to rest, which was a simple matter of gently pushing it back into its body. Once I had done that Fiona gave a small scream. I turned around to see half a dozen more cheese wasps. Did I mention that being a necromancer can be a pain in the ass? Because it can.

  “I had no idea,” she said.

  “Were they in here while you were plastering?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t avoid it, there were so many,” she said. “It was a rushed job, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “I’ll lay them to rest too. If we burn them and scatter the ashes, they shouldn’t come back even if I spend the night here. High heat seems to eliminate the effect and so does breaking down the corpse.” Which was fortunate, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to eat meat without an accusing audience.

  “How can you be sure you’ve got them all?” She asked.

  “I can’t,” I said. “It’s not like corpses hold up signs that only I can see. I can only see the results of my power along with everyone else.”

  “Hmmph. How much do you charge to use your powers?”

  “You want me to exorcise your attic?”

  “Yes. I can’t risk another necromancer coming in here and causing more trouble than you have.” I looked around. Digging out the psychic cheese wasp had left a crater in an already wretched plastering job. For someone who was already unsteady on her feet, it was dangerous. I shook my head.

  “Whether I contact the spirits or not you’re going to have to scrape this stuff off the floor.” She groaned.

  “I was hoping you would lie to me. Fine, but you’re helping me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t have known about the dead bugs embedded in my floor if you hadn’t shown up,” she said. I couldn’t argue with that.

  “Fine, but don’t expect much. I’m not good at home improvement.”

  “I don’t mind,” Fiona said. “Even if we did a good job something else would come along to ruin my floor eventually.”

  We used trowels to scrape the plaster off and got rid of it by throwing it out the window.

  “I’ll clean it up later,” Fiona said. We found over a dozen more cheese wasps in the corners of the room.

  “How much of a hurry were you in?” I asked as I uncovered a whole pile of them.

  “A very great hurry,” she replied. “They were the biggest threat to the world ever to come through that portal on my watch.”

  We worked until dinner time and only cleared half the room. We ate leftover chicken, and I offered to come back the next day and help.

  “I’d appreciate it,” Fiona said. “All that crouching is difficult for me.” I thanked her for the food and left.

  When I entered the hotel, Mrs. Whateley jumped out of her chair at the sight of me.

  “Mr. Windisle, you might want to take a shower,” she said. “You look more like a ghost than usual.”

  I looked in the mirror behind her and realized that I was covered in plaster dust.

  “Wow.”

  “Were you building a wall?” she asked.

  “No, I was tearing up a floor. May I have some extra towels sent to my room?”

  “Oh, course.” She smiled at me. “Do you often tear up floors?”

  “No, today was the first time.” I went back outside and shook off as much plaster as I could. My clothes looked appalling. I stuffed them in a garment bag. I’d wear them to help Fiona tomorrow t
hen send them to be cleaned. Until then I had one extra set of clothes until my new ones got back from the cleaners.

  ***

  I’d planned to spend the evening reading, but Steve called. He’d got his other experts organized and wanted to know if I could go back to the construction site and take another look around.

  “I thought you wanted me to come back after the geologist.”

  “That was before the chupacabra started eating my employees.”

  “Wait, the what?”

  “The goat sucker. It’s a legendary Puerto Rican monster that sucks the guts out of livestock.”

  “I know what a chupacabra is,” I said. “It was the whole sentence I had a problem with.”

  “Didn’t anyone tell you? The victims were eviscerated, and their internal organs are missing.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said.

  “Isn’t it? In this area, the real culprit could be just about anything. I’ve done some research, and this place is crawling with doomsday cultists and whatnot to the point that I’m surprised I haven’t seen any of them out picketing the mall.”

  “Cultists like convenience and reasonable prices as much as anyone else,” I said. “I’m surprised no one mentioned it to me.”

  “They probably thought you already knew,” Steve said. “In most places it would be big news. This town has a very high turnover rate. Anyway, I can offer you more money to try again, and to contact the dead men and ask them what happened.”

  “Would their families be okay with that?”

  “Their families are demanding something be done. One of them found out that we’d hired a psychic.”

  I thought about it. Sparks did the real communicating, and there was no guarantee he’d feel like passing anything on. It was a chance to make money; however, and I’d been asked . . .

  “I’ll need to be with one of the corpses to do a reading,” I said. “On one condition, none of the relatives can be there.” I really, really didn’t need that kind of drama. Don’t get me wrong, I do my share of talking to people’s dead relatives, I just have two firm policies: they have to have been dead at least five years and I won’t provide any personal messages.

  I can’t provide personal messages anyway. Specters give me a combination of sights and sounds that convey the message they want me to receive. If I did hear something that sounded like a message from beyond the grave I would assume it was due to creative editing from a particularly clever specter. As to the waiting period, whether they understand my limitations or not, the recently bereaved are a nightmare to deal with. They’re either furious with me when I don’t tell them what they want to hear, or I do tell them something they want to hear and they latch onto me as if I were the Second Coming of Christ Himself. The worst part is that people who are grieving are often in major denial about their ability, or inability, as the case may be, to remain rational and composed in public. I instituted my current policy after my second screaming graveside meltdown. Even when the relatives meet my requirements, I don’t do it often, mainly because few people who want to talk to their deceased loved ones are hoping for forgotten PINs or secret recipes.

  It’s a shame, really. Specters can always be counted on to pass on recipes even if they won’t give out the deceased’s name. They don’t answer my questions or share a highlight reel; they’re attracted to novelty. Every graveyard is full of people who’ve had affairs or hidden assets, or have gone to their graves without writing down in their will who they want to inherit their completed set of ceramic tea figurines. The real variety in the human condition is in our food. And if the specters won’t tell me a secret ingredient that’s useful information in and of itself. Usually, it means the secret ingredient is some sort of booze.

  “You don’t need to visit the scene of the crime?” Steve asked. I’d always been a bit vague when explaining what I do to him.

  “No. For useful information, I need the body. I only deal with dead things, and places can’t be dead.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” There was a pause. “Are you sure you’re not just avoiding going back?”

  “Why would I? Real murderers don’t lurk at the scene of their crime waiting to kill again. I just want to get the bad part out of the way first.”

  “Have it your way,” Steve said. “It works for me anyway. I may not have mentioned to my geologist that he was hired at the suggestion of a psychic. He can take his samples while you go talk to dead people.”

  “Great,” I said. I meant it. I don’t like meeting new people, and it felt like I’d met half the town in two days. I was ready for a break.

  “Sweet dreams,” Steve said. “If all goes well I’ll take you to see the corpses tomorrow.”

  On that cheerful note, I couldn’t get back into my book. And I couldn’t sleep. Just like the last two nights, around ten o’clock a group of lights appeared at the edge of the swamp and went off to the forest. This time I didn’t go to bed after that. I was too nervous to sleep. I’d picked up a lot of useful information from dead people in the past, like the aforementioned recipes. Sparks and his kind love sharing secrets, but most people’s secrets just aren’t that bad. In the case of secret ingredients, they can be excellent. Murder was something else altogether. To say I wasn’t looking forward to it was putting it mildly. I paced for a long time, trying to work off my nervous energy.

  Chapter 7: Now playing, “Devil Radish: Feast of Entrails”

  The next morning I woke up lying on the floor. I had vague memories of dreaming of the meadow again, and a plaster bust of Fiona brandishing a pie. I got dressed and went downstairs.

  Jeremiah was at the front desk.

  “Earl is waiting for you,” he said. “Did you see those lights again?”

  “Yes.”

  “So did I. And only two came back.”

  “Does that mean people are camping in that forest?”

  “I doubt it,” Jeremiah said. “I’ve already spoken with Earl about it. It looks like one of the local cults is up to no good again.” That was nice to hear. I wondered how many local cults there were.

  I went to the dining room and started assembling my breakfast. Earl waved when he saw me. He’d helped himself to a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs.

  “You’re not looking bad,” he said. “I’m here to take you to the morgue. You can eat first if you want, but I’d recommend toast. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “Thanks for the suggestion.” I got some coffee and an English muffin with marmalade. If at all possible I was going to try to do my job without looking at the body.

  “Before you go, would you mind going to Bishop’s Corner with me?” Earl asked. “I agreed to investigate those lights Jeremiah saw, and I don’t want you to get snatched away by someone else.”

  “Who would ‘snatch’ me?”

  “Any cultists who find out you have real psychic powers for one. Or the state police. They are convinced that you will confess if only they can interrogate you, preferably without us around.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Well, it ain’t really my case,” Earl said, “but I reckon a monster did it. That or a very stealthy group of cannibals.”

  “A monster did it? Are cops even allowed to say stuff like that?”

  Earl shrugged.

  “I’m just offering my unofficial opinion.”

  “What’s your official opinion?

  “Whoever did this must be a monster.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Come on, come with me. A little fresh air will do you good.”

  “Fine.”

  The marsh behind the hotel looked like a sea of mud up close.

  “How is anyone going to recreate a battle here?” I asked after sinking to my knees in a mud puddle. Earl helped me out.

  “You mean the Jericho thing? I think getting muddy comes with the territory there. It’ll be a bitch getting the wall out here, though, even if they are only doing one side.”

  “So you’re not par
ticipating?”

  “I’m not much of a churchgoer, to tell you the truth. I’ll be on the sidelines doing crowd control and drinking hot cider. It’s going to be close to freezing when they do the reenactment; it always is. Do you see any signs of someone coming this way?”

  “No, but I’m not good at tracking things. In any case, the lights came from the mountains, not the hotel.”

  “So they make a circuit? That’s interesting.”

  As we walked toward the forest, a low hill hid the hotel from us. The sky seemed darker than it had before, and shreds of mist clung to the ground.

  “What kind of idiot would come here in the middle of the night?” I asked as I pulled my leg out of another mud hole.

  “There’s no accounting for taste,” Earl replied. “I don’t keep up with every crazy legend about this town. There’s probably some story about a monster or ancient ruins to lure people out here. I just know it’s one of the few places the locals genuinely don’t like.”

  “Oh?” I tried to sound interested. Talking kept my mind off how cold and muddy I was. Why had I agreed to this?

  “Every weird spot in town, someone’s found a way to take advantage of it, or else they ignore it as background noise. Just look at Fiona and her baby squid alien. Stuff like that shows up in her attic all the time, and she won’t hear a word about moving. But mention this place and she acts like you suggested a trip to Chernobyl.”

  “It is creepy,” I said. The mountains were towering over us now, and I could see the trees. The swamp ended on a hill so steep that I didn’t think it would be possible to walk down it. The top half was covered in grass and blackberry vines, but the bottom was rocky and ended in a thicket. The thicket lasted a dozen yards or so; then there was a grassy clearing that gave way to a field of large, jagged rocks leading into the forest. The whole hill was wet, and a thin stream of water ran down one side. Despite the running water, it was quiet.

  “Somebody else has been here,” Earl said. “The grass has been flattened.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said. I just saw a wet green mess. “How are we supposed to get down there?”

  “We’re not,” Earl said. “You’re going to stay up here and watch me. If something happens either help me climb back up or go get help.” With that, he made his way down the hill. At first he tried to stay upright. By the end, he was sitting down and sliding. At the bottom, he looked around and turned to look up at me.