Chapter 32: Marina Murders (12)

“This place is creepy as hell,”  Lev muttered.

I wholeheartedly agreed.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse.  Visibility was at an all time low.  The snow had picked up even more, blotting out the world with reflective snow, glowing with the soft orange of the single streetlamp nearby.  Wiping the frost off the window with my sleeve, I cupped my hands to my forehead and took a better look.

We were near the docks, for sure.  There was a bite in the air which wasn’t there before, even though the truck heater was turned up to max.  A wooden boardwalk lined the concrete blocks to one side.  Beyond them were hulking shadows that swayed to an inaudible rhythm.  Boats.  They had to be.

On the other side, the concrete construction continued.  A set of stairs that led to an overpass which arched over a walkway.  The structure stuck out like a sore thumb.  Everything here was made of wood, cobblestone, and water.  But the overpass –and the resulting underpass– was the only thing here made entirely out of man-made materials.

It could have been the fact that everything below the bridge was swathed completely in darkness.  Maybe it was the way the snowfall chose to pile up just outside the entrance, but refused to enter.  

Or it could have been the strange chill I got as I stared deep into the tunnel, making me choose to turn away as my heart began to thump.

But I couldn’t help but return to it.  The more I looked at it, the more this sinking feeling grew.  A sickening pit that roiled against my guts, like someone was tapping my spine one vertebrae at a time.  I kept looking away and eventually glanced at it again, unable to tear it out from my mind.

It wasn’t just me being crazy either.  I saw Lev scanning the distance, his gaze returning to the bridge underpass more than once.  It took visual effort for him to look away, but it was futile.

Finally, he said, “What do you think about this, Hallow?”

“Define ‘this’”.  

“That.”  Lev kindly pointed out the underpass to me.

I snorted.  “I…”  I kindly stopped myself from coming back with a witty answer.

The air had changed in the car.  A sense of tension that felt like taut wire on my skin, wrapping tight around my limbs which made me squirm; it wasn’t just the gloomy underpass causing it.  Lev and Penelope, both of them sat stock silent, still as a statue, and had sucked all the mirth out of the air.

And I realized we were really going to go in there.  To look for whatever monster had caused –no, not caused– killed those people.

The realization made the baby hairs on the back of neck stand up.

I shut the door on the small part of my mind that was screaming that it wasn’t too late to turn my back on all this.

Handing the steering wheel over to the marginally less terrified part of my mind, I swallowed a breath and confirmed, “This definitely is the place.”

“Ok.”  Lev shared a meaningful look with Penelope.  “Let’s get this over with.”

The blizzard nipped at my exposed cheeks, neck, and hands the moment I got out of the truck.  The snow settled on my jean cuffs, turning to solid chips of ice and making my feet heavy.  Slinging my backpack over one shoulder, I followed the other two to the back of the truck.

Snow fell in droves.

Lev used his sleeve to wipe away a mountain of snow that had settled down on the truck bed cover.  With a grunt of effort, he rolled it back.

“Holy shit.”  I swore.

He casually took out a freaking handgun, with the holster and all, belting it to his waist.  

Penelope was next, reaching in and bringing out a kitchen knife that was only a little less than a sword.  They definitely didn’t sell that at any restaurant warehouse depots that I knew of.  The handle was wrapped in green duct tape, which she reinforced with another roll.

She saw me staring, then explained wistfully,  “No carry license.”

Call me insane, but I thought a carry license was the last of someone’s worries when hunting a mass-murdering supernatural being.  But then again, New York being what it is, I kind of nodded in half-understanding.

“You sure that’s enough?”  I asked, looking at the knife.

“What do you mean?”  Lev answered, rummaging around the back of his truck.  The snow was already piling on the shoulders of his leather jacket.

“I don’t know.  We have a handgun and,” I paused to search for a word slightly more dangerous than kitchen knife, “Cutlery.”  

That certainly wasn't it.  Regardless, I continued, “Is that enough to kill…”  I gestured with my head towards the underpass, refusing to look.  “It?”

“Don’t know.  Guess we’ll find out.”  Lev said offhandedly, and took out a flashlight.  “Add a flashlight to that list.”

I frowned.  “Why does it sound like you’re winging this?”

“Because we are?”  He scowled.

Not gonna lie, his answer kind of pissed me off.

But now was hardly the time to pick a fight.  It’s like having an argument right before a group presentation.  It never ends well.  Careful to speak in measured tones, my angry caveman brain pieced together bits of the words that civilized people use when having a discussion.

“What do you mean we’re winging this?!”  I nearly screamed.

Goddamit, Jain.  Way to go.

Lev and Penelope both turned to me, a note of alarm in their expressions.

“I thought you two were descended from like, Dracula, or, or, Werewolves, or Bigfoot! Aren’t your families, I don’t know, supersoldiers that were born exactly for this situation?”

A small wrinkle appeared between Penelope’s brow and she carefully tousled the trims of her hair, unlodging loose snow.  I would learn later that this was her getting annoyed, but attempting not to show it.

“That was thousands of years ago, Hallow.  Besides, our family… it isn’t like that anymore.”  She made a frustrated noise and looked to Lev.

“Don’t look at me.  I’m not one of the heirs-in-training.”  He sniffed, rubbing his hands together, “I didn’t even attend those lectures.”

She rolled her eyes, “A lot of what we knew was lost.  Egypt, Rome, London, all burnt to nothing.  The French Revolution and the following 19th century… look, I don’t want to get into it right now.  But whatever idea you had of our family, that isn’t it.”

I stared at her, then at her kitchen knife.  Then I thought of the underpass and the pictures of all the dead bodies.  Lastly, I closed my eyes, remembering the vision that Susan showed me– the eyes, the hands, the pain.

“Just us three?”  I croaked.  Now was hell of a time to get cold feet, but it was better than blaming them when something happened.

“Our family isn’t an organization like Society,”  Penelope said, “Think about it.  A few hundred people, loosely connected by blood.  New York, Georgia, Florida, Chicago, California, Washington –spread all across the United States.  That’s just in the United States; there’s more of us in other countries.  That’s easily thousands of people.  You following?”

I nodded.

“Now take that and add in a couple of power plays, fighting over whatever scraps that’s left from the Old Guard, spurned feelings… then combine that with the fact that most of us want to just lead regular lives; you get this.”  She gestured to nowhere in particular, “Just a loosely connected network of people, using tidbits of information to make a difference.  Just enough to stay relevant, but not enough to be of any use.”

“Trust me, I get where you’re coming from, Hallow.”  Lev closed the truck bed with a heavy thud, muffled by the blizzard all around us.  “I also get that sense sometimes.  That we were more.  Once.  That we’re not the way we’re supposed to be.  But it’s not like I’m old enough to remember.  It’s just a feeling, you know?.  That there were more of us.  That we are supposed to have been more, and did more.  Right now though?”  he shrugged, “It’s just us.”

“Fuck.”  I swore, reality hitting me for the only-god-knows-how-many-times-th today.  “So you’ve never done this before?”

“We did.  Once.”  Penelope answered.

Her answer made me feel marginally better.

“So?  In or out?  It’s not too late.”  Lev asked.

“I’m still in.”