“I’ll help in the morning. Just make sure to keep that little monster locked up good.”
They drank together silently for about twenty minutes. Samuel started feeling lightheaded soon after. His body swayed slightly. He readjusted his frames.
“She killed him. She was so fast. Like it was nothing.”
The sheriff snorted.
“Of course it did. You think I’m stupid? Did you think I was lying to you?” He propped up his elbows, his fingers forming into the shape of claws. “Landon. Ripped him to bits. It dug its fingers into his chest and ripped him open. You hear me? No person could do that. I won’t sleep a good night’s rest until that thing has a bullet between the eyes.” He shot an imaginary gun and laughed. “Well. Maybe we should call on your old man. Do that thing. What’s it called again?”
“Exorcism.”
The sheriff snapped his fingers. “That’s it. Exorcism.” He said each syllable slowly. “A demon. Whatever it is, it ain’t human. That’s for damn sure.”
“Not human,” Samuel echoed.
The sheriff snorted as he stood up, his feet so unsteady he held the table for balance. His heavy eyes looked at Samuel. He leaned forward. “I’m gonna show you something. Something the mayor hasn’t seen. And if you so much as utter a word to anyone, I swear to your father’s god—”
“You’ll beat my ass?”
“Good lad. It’s a deal?”
Samuel pursed his lips, unsure if he wanted to make such an agreement, but the sheriff didn’t wait for a response. He staggered to the bedroom, his arms outstretched to help his balance. Samuel rubbed his hair, his senses dulled and his skin tingling. He felt as if his muscles were jelly. He needed sleep, but his mind probably wouldn’t allow him the opportunity. He took another sip of liquor and heard the sheriff’s rustling footsteps behind him.
“Here,” the sheriff said with a grunt. He dropped something on the table.
Samuel’s sight was hazy, so he readjusted his frames to bring the item into focus. It was some sort of mechanical device, the browning metal and rusted bolts giving away its old age. The top portion contained a two-pronged claw with multiple spur gears inside of it. Three rusted pipes extended from the claw down to a tattered leather holster. The holster had two straps: one that buckled tightly around the base and the other that hooped several inches over it. The entire contraption couldn’t have been more than a foot in length.
“Around the harness,” the sheriff said while twirling his finger. “Look right there. Do you see it?”
Samuel picked up the device, surprised by its weight. He needed both hands to secure it. He lifted it to the candlelight, examining the straps. Sewn into the leather appeared to be miniature glass-like tubes and wires, the technology resembling an expensive relic the mayor could have mounted to the wall of his estate.
“What is it?”
“Are you serious?” the sheriff asked as he sank back into his chair. “I guess you’re not as smart as I thought you were. It’s a prosthetic. A fake arm. Military grade, from the looks of it. Pre-blackout. Forbidden technology.”
Samuel tightened his grip. The hooked claws reminded him of Zei’s hand when she tore into Claudette’s father. “Is it hers?”
“Anybody else you know have need for a machine arm?” The sheriff kicked his feet onto the table, his arms crossing over his chest. “After we left the scene, one of my boys found it underneath the snow next to the trap. My guess is Landon must’ve been able to rip it off of the little bitch before it got the best of him.”
Samuel pictured the device attached to Zei’s stub, imagining what she would look like with a mechanical arm. “Why keep this a secret? Why not show the mayor?”
The sheriff laughed.
“Tell me this, kid. Who would have access to the forbidden technologies? And … why would they give it to a monster like that? It’s like it was custom made for it.” The sheriff sucked air through his teeth. “No. I’m not showing this to the mayor. Last thing that power hungry asshole needs is a loaded weapon.”
Samuel put the prosthetic arm on the table and slid it over to the sheriff. “If you hate the mayor so much, why are you his sheriff?”
The sheriff huffed. “Same reason you’re an overpaid babysitter. We do what we have to. If you wanted to live by some moral code of right and wrong and good and evil, then you should’ve stayed with the cleric.”
Samuel stood beside Claudette throughout the funeral’s procession. She locked her arms around his. She wore a lavender dress, her hair tied back into a tight bun. She cried in little spurts, but she never lost her composure. Laura was much more reserved, her expression blank. The mortician had covered the body with a sheet up to the neck, covering the gored torso. No one had any words to share, not even Claudette or Laura. There was no point in singing the praises of a criminal.
“Idiot,” was the only thing Laura said aloud during the entirety of the service.
Samuel’s father went up to the coffin, and Laura stared at her feet. Samuel brushed his bangs to the side as his father read from the scriptures, sharing a passage about the mercy of Azhuel extending to all people. When he finished his prayer, his father pulled out the throwing knife Samuel had given him. He slid the blade across his palm. Blood leaked through his fingers.
Samuel looked away. Part of this was his fault; he knew it was. If he hadn’t been so trusting of Zei, if he had found a way to persuade the mayor out of his cruel test, perhaps Claudette’s father would still be alive. Maybe Zei wouldn’t have butchered him.
He reached into his peacoat’s inner pocket, checking to make sure the paper was still there. He’d have to find a way to pass it along without drawing any attention. The rites concluded, and Samuel helped Laura and several loggers who’d volunteered to assist with the burial. They carried the coffin over to the graveyard near the southeast corner of the neighborhoods. The only markings for the graves were thin sticks that had been shoved into the earth on top of the coffins. However, when the snowstorms came, many of the sticks would be knocked out of place. It mattered little to northerners. It was their way of symbolizing how everyone was the same in death. Politicians and other men of higher status, however, could be buried wherever their surviving loved ones wanted. Samuel knew all the past members of the Thompson family were buried behind the mayor’s estate, but he’d never seen if their graves were marked any different.
After they lowered the casket into the plot, Samuel turned back to check on his father. He was already walking away, his path a straight shot to the eastern woods. Samuel apologized as he told everyone he had to use the restroom but would be back quickly. He saw his father disappear into the woods and dashed after him, looking back frequently to see if anyone was paying him any mind.
Once he got into the woods, he called out for him.
“Father.”
He shuffled around the pine trees and hard dirt. A group of squirrels darted up the trunk of a tree as he came up toward them. He stopped, looking around a bit. His father had to cut across back onto the path they’d made. He knew he couldn’t be too far from it, but he needed to hurry.