Chapter Four
The drive to Shallow Springs wasn’t as pleasant as the one McCoy had taken six months prior. Instead of a bright spring day, he now faced a dreary October morning. A cold drizzle forced him to keep Boo’s wipers arcing noisily across the windshield.
He wanted to find out what was going on, but he wasn’t looking forward to seeing Bob Lyle. The sheriff was usually pleasant enough, but McCoy could see through the man’s false front. He knew that Lyle couldn’t stand him, and the only time the sheriff had anything to do with him was when there was a problem with the Fey.
Lyle had been re-elected consistently over the past twenty years, despite the fact that the only person that he actually cared about was Bob Lyle. Or, to be more specific, Bob Lyle’s career. He had covered up more deaths and disappearances than the CIA. Due to the tireless efforts of the sheriff, the citizens of Shallow Springs were blissfully unaware that they shared their town with monsters.
It would have done no good for McCoy to have tried to enlighten them. Just as he was aware of Lyle’s true feelings about him, he knew that people considered him to be a flake at best and a carnival sideshow freak at worst. He was okay with this, mostly because he didn’t give a shit what people thought of him, but also because it allowed him to enjoy his privacy. Having no close friends allowed him to spend his time as he pleased, and there was no one he felt he had to take care of.
At least there hadn’t been before Amanda. McCoy hadn’t expected to fall in love with her, but it had happened anyway. He had been quite the womanizer before they had met and had assumed those habits would continue until he died in his sleep or something nasty got him.
But Amanda was different. She was intelligent. She was strong. And she was sexy as hell. When she’d found out the truth about the Fey and other creatures that lurk in the night, it had shaken her to her core, but she had refused to succumb to fear. She had accepted and adapted. McCoy had never before seen anyone deal with that knowledge as well as Amanda had, and she had gained his instant respect.
He had not, however, foreseen that she might want to become involved in his work, and he was not sure how to handle this unhappy development. He cared too much for her to risk seeing her get hurt, but he risked alienating her if he shut her out completely from his work. It seemed to be a no-win situation.
It was a little after nine when he passed the town limits sign. Returning to Shallow Springs was always bittersweet; he had been born and raised in the town, and he had also barely escaped it with his life. That had been fifteen years ago, and he could probably count on one hand the times he’d been back since. Lately, he’d felt increasingly guilty over that fact. He was likely the only one who had a chance in hell of helping the people of the town, and he had all but turned his back on them. Like Bob Lyle, he had been more worried about his own skin than stopping the loss of innocent life.
His last trip to the Springs, when he’d come to help Amanda, had marked a change in him. While battling a water hound, an ancient Celtic monster associated with the Fey, he had become increasingly resentful of the fairies for the torture they had inflicted on him and the people of the town. A burning rage had been ignited within him, and he was determined to somehow end the Fey’s reign of terror.
To do this, though, he would have to find the portal. The Fey were extra-dimensional beings, not from this dimension but able to exist here as they pleased. Travel back and forth, however, required a portal, similar to the ones demons used to materialize in this reality. Obviously, there was a portal located in or around Shallow Springs, but McCoy had never been able to locate it.
The rain began in earnest as he pulled in front of the sheriff’s office. A streak of lightning lit up the gray and swollen sky, followed closely by a window-rattling clap of thunder. If the weather didn’t break soon, it would be useless to stick around after meeting with Lyle.
McCoy hopped out of the truck and ran to the front door, getting thoroughly soaked in the process. He opened the door and went into the front lobby. His wet shoes squeaked as he walked across the tiled floor. A female deputy sat behind the front desk, and McCoy struggled to remember her name. Debbie? Diane? No. Deidre. He was pretty sure that was it. He walked over to the desk and stood there dripping and smiling.
The deputy glanced up at him, was apparently not impressed, and went back to whatever she was doing on her computer. McCoy stood there a moment longer, and when she failed to look up again, he cleared his throat. With an annoyed expression, she looked at him again, eyebrows arched.
“Deidre, is it?” he asked, and her expression softened just a little. Apparently she was mildly impressed that he had remembered her name. It was a start, anyway.
“Yes, Mr. McCoy. How can I help you?”
“Got an appointment with the sheriff. Is he in?”
Deidre picked up the phone, hit a button, and informed Lyle that McCoy was waiting. After a brief pause, she hung up the phone and motioned McCoy towards the sheriff’s office. He tipped his hat and smiled. Deidre snorted and returned to work.
McCoy stopped at the sheriff’s door and knocked. He might as well be on his best behavior; he was going to have to work with Lyle, like it or not.
“Come in,” the sheriff’s voice boomed from the other side of the door.
McCoy opened the door and stepped inside. As a token of respect, he removed his hat. He was pleased to see the gesture wasn’t lost on Lyle.
“Finn,” the sheriff said, rising from his desk. “Long time, no see.” He offered his hand and the two men shook.
“Yeah. Don’t make it up this way too often.” said McCoy.
“Well, it’s good to see you, anyway.” Lyle was laying it on thick. McCoy figured the situation was even worse than he’d thought. “Sorry it has to be under these circumstances. Have a seat.”
McCoy sat down in one of the chairs which faced the sheriff’s desk. He glanced around the office. Lyle was an avid fisherman, and the walls of his office were decorated with angling memorabilia and several stuffed fish. There was even one of the plastic fish that moved and sang a song when you pushed a button. McCoy imagined Lyle, alone in his office, pushing that button repeatedly and grinning as the fish sang.
“So what’s the score?” McCoy asked.
Lyle sighed. “One more than when we talked yesterday. Kid named Ben Rollins. We found his car out on Duncan Road last night. Most of his innards were still in it.”
McCoy was surprised. “That’s eight in all. When did the first one go missing?”
“Two months ago, give or take.”
“Damn. That’s averaging two a week. They’ve never been this bold before.”
“Not by half,” Lyle agreed.
Though he dreaded it, McCoy asked, “Anybody I know?”
Lyle shrugged. “First was Evert Adams. He went ginseng hunting on Miller’s Ridge and never came back home. Next was Bessie Peterson. They must’ve taken her out of her house. The place was a wreck. After that was Dennis Yates.”
“I know Dennis,” McCoy said. “Drives a tow truck for Green’s Towing.”
“He did. Went out on a call around ten at night. We found the truck in a ditch the next day.”
“Where was that?”
“Just the other side of the Mill Dam. Barb Hutchins went two days later, about a two miles out of town on 719.”
McCoy was mentally mapping the locations, and he was starting to see a pattern.
“It was quiet for almost a week, then Harv Stanley went out on Wednesday for his poker night with the boys. Found his car on Monster Road the next morning.”
“The next one was near Drover Mountain too, wasn’t it?”
Lyle seemed impressed. “Yep. Alvin Hobbs was coon hunting there. Never made it back.”
“Okay,” McCoy said. “You said the Rollins fella bought it on Duncan Road. If the pattern I’m seeing holds, the seventh one was somewhere around Cane Creek Road.”
“You win the kewpie doll. Missy Newton
left for work Tuesday morning. She works—or worked—at the hospital. She never made it there.”
“You see the pattern?” McCoy asked.
Lyle nodded. “They started on Miller’s Ridge, came down the mountain to the dam, came close to town, then headed across Drover Mountain and down Monster Road. From there, they crossed Cane Creek and ended up on Duncan Road.”
“They? Do you have any idea which ones we’re talking about?”
“Not exactly,” Lyle shook his head. “Of course, I don’t know ‘em like you do. We found some tracks, though. There were a lot of ‘em, and they were small buggers.”
McCoy winced. He hadn’t believed that the Sluagh could be responsible for all of the disappearances, but the evidence was sure pointing that way. But if it were the Sluagh, then there was something else curious about the whole thing.
“No kids,” he mumbled.
“Excuse me?”
“I was just saying that none of the victims were children.”
“Thank God,” Lyle said.
“Yeah. I mean, it’s a good thing that no kids were taken, but it’s also a bit puzzling.”
“Why’s that?”
“If it’s the Sluagh that’re doing this—and it sounds like they are—then the fact that no children have been taken just doesn’t fit. The only thing the slaugh enjoy more than ripping a person apart is kidnapping a child. They go out of their way for that sort of thing.”
“Maybe the opportunity hasn’t presented itself,” Lyle offered.
“Maybe,” McCoy nodded absently. He sensed there was more to this than met the eye.
“So you’re saying if a child were present, it would be the primary target for these things?”
“From everything I know about them, yes.”
“Damn fairies. That’s all I need.” As if things weren’t bad enough, now Lyle had to worry about a kid being taken. That would drive a stake through the heart of his re-election bid for sure. These things had to be stopped, and fast. If that meant throwing McCoy a little more assistance than the sheriff had originally planned, so be it.
“I’m assuming these things can be killed.”
“Oh. Yeah.” McCoy had been lost in thought. “The Sluagh are the Hosts of the Unforgiven Dead. They’re more or less human souls trapped in Fey bodies. An iron stake or knife will work, among other things.”
“Wait. You said human souls?”
McCoy nodded. “As the legend goes, they are either lost souls or souls so evil that they have no place in either heaven or hell. Of course, they’ve become so twisted that you wouldn’t recognize them, even if you had known the person well in life.”
Lyle snorted with disgust. He disliked all this supernatural mumbo-jumbo. He’d dealt with it firsthand, and so he was forced to believe in it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He folded his hands on his desk and looked down at them.
“Let’s get to the bone here, Finn. Outside of me and you, nobody in this town knows what’s really going on. I think a few people suspect it’s something more than random vanishings or crime-related disappearances, but I seriously doubt anyone’s considered fairy abduction. So I’m limited in what kind of assistance I can offer. I can give you manpower for searches, but I’m damn sure not going to tell my deputies to be on the lookout for goblins or trolls. You can use whatever resources I have, as long as you run it by me first.”
McCoy considered this. Lyle had never before been so generous with offers to help, and that meant the sheriff was desperate. It was tempting to take Lyle up on it, but the thing that really stuck in McCoy’s craw was that the sheriff was only out to save his job. He wasn’t worried about the people who were being slaughtered, not really. He knew that Lyle considered himself superior to the citizens he was sworn to protect, and it left a bad taste in McCoy’s mouth.
Still, things might start to get rough, so it wouldn’t be prudent to dismiss the sheriff’s offer out of hand. McCoy needed to use tact, which was scary, because it was something he had little experience with.
“I appreciate it, Bob. I really do. Tell you what, though. Let me do a little checking around first. You know, under the radar. When I get a better idea of what we’re dealing with, I’ll fill you in and we can go from there.”
Lyle nodded. He looked relieved. “We’ve got to move quickly, Finn,” he said. “Before anyone else gets hurt.”
Like you care, McCoy thought, but he gave Lyle a look of grim determination and nodded back.