Always the nausea.
Goddamn the nausea.
As always, this pain was followed by a rush of fury. Anger at the realization that I wasn’t the invincible man I used to be. Anger that my life had changed in an instant, leaving me with a constant reminder of what had now become the good ’ol days. Anger that I couldn’t fight the heavy hand of time. A bitch, time was.
Unlike good and evil, old was one concept I never thought about. I never assumed I’d reach the age to be considered old. Records are old, aversion to anal is old, the Karate Kid is old. I’m not old. If I’m being totally honest, I expected to go out years ago in a blaze of glory—in my vision, I’m wearing a sweatband in a mid-air Kung Fu leap with a ball of fire at my back. You know, like Rambo but without the quirked lip… … who is also now old, come to think of it—with one hand flashing the middle finger and the other wrapped around my nuts.
Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for me.
My pain finally dulled to what I imagine a severed organ would feel like. My hand mindlessly drifted to the bottle of pills in my pocket.
Wait until you get home, a little voice in my head whispered.
I straightened fully, cursing my bones, then took off down the graveled drive that cut between the headstones, the blue-glow of the moon lighting my way. I decided to avoid Main Street and cut through the woods of City Park.
The night dimmed around me the second I stepped under the thick canopy of trees. My only light was from the dim lampposts that line the jogging trails. I knew every inch of those woods, that park, by heart. Not only from running the trails every morning, but from responding to countless noise complaints during my beat cop days before becoming a detective. It was a favorite spot among the local teens, their own little Hookah lounge right there in the middle of town.
The clouds drifted over the moon and darkness engulfed me, my senses shifting to hearing and smell only. For a moment, I felt like I was back in my twenties, slipping from shadow to shadow on a black op that usually ended in more than one dead body. It felt good.
God, I missed it.
I stepped onto the jogging trail under the yellow spotlight of a lamppost, and that’s when I got that good ol’ feeling that I wasn’t alone. I paused, scanning from left to right when a soft chiming caught my attention. A distant song, carrying through the midnight breeze like a siren’s call. My brow furrowed as I looked in the direction of the sound, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It wasn’t music, in the traditional sense anyway, just random creepy-ass chimes, growing louder in the wind. Soft, tinkles of a song.
The clouds parted, moonlight washing over me again as I stepped off the trail and into the woods, following the sound. More chimes, this time followed by a sparkle of lights flashing through the trees overhead. My hand instinctively slid to the gun on my hip as I picked my way through the brush, each flash of light increasing in speed as I approached. Like a freaking discotheque, or maybe a late-night fiesta of dancing cicadas wearing little red hats and shaking their maracas.
The music grew louder. My senses piqued. My hand squeezed the hilt of my gun as I stepped into a clearing.
A massive oak tree sat in the middle of the clearing with long, low branches, snarling around each other like arthritic fingers. A perfect climbing tree—aside from the fact that someone had turned it into a shrine.
Dozens of wind chimes, crystals and strings of broken mirrors dangled from the branches, catching the slivers of moonlight and reflecting in a kaleidoscope of colors on the surrounding trees. I half-expected Cinderella to jump out of a pumpkin—something I would not have minded, by the way. The compliant, blonde maid was my first childhood crush. I mean, the woman could really clean a floor. The difference here, though, was that Cinderella didn’t carve Wiccan symbols into tree trunks.
A rotted branch had been positioned at the base of the oak, a circle of candles flickering on top. And hidden among the branches sat dozens of voodoo dolls, their black, beady eyes staring directly into my soul.
2
Jagg
I pulled the gun from my belt and did a three-sixty scan, the shadows from the candles taunting me, playing tricks on my vision. A less experienced man might have emptied a few rounds into the shadows, or perhaps dropped to his knees to repent.
Not this man.
Once I was certain I was alone—in the human form, at least—I slid my Glock into the holster and used my cell phone flashlight to scan the tree. One particular doll caught my eye, stringy, black spirals of hair fanning across a carved face. A flash of light lit the doll’s eyes.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled.
My gaze shifted to the slashes of moon through the leaves, spotlighting each doll, their beady gazes fixed on me.
I was familiar with witchcraft. Even dated a few women who’d promised special powers. One of which required a number change and two doses of antibiotics to vanish. But it had been years since I’d come across a Wiccan shrine in the middle of the woods… Yards from the cemetery… Days before a full moon.
I’m not too proud to say I was a bit of a nerd in school, as most highly intelligent people are. I took an interest in astronomy, particularly cosmology, where I learned about the highly debated theory that a full moon affects human behavior. “The Lunar Effect,” or “The Transylvania Effect,” suggests the full moon causes changes in behavior and exaggerates mental illness. Theories are just that, though. I prefer science:
Every thirty days—twenty-nine point five, to be exact—the earth aligns between the sun and the moon, causing a gravitational pull called tidal force. Ocean water is pulled to the closest side of the moon, known as high tides. Cycles of mammals and marine life are linked to this phenomena. No one can deny its effect on earth. Here’s where the theory comes to play. The human body is made up of seventy-five percent water. That’s a lot of water. Many people believe this epic gravitational pull affects not only ocean water, but the water in our bodies as well, causing our system to go awry.
And that’s when the crazies come out.
You’ve heard the rumors that people and animals sleep less during a full moon, and crime is more common on those blessed nights. Here’s what I can attest to: I’ve delivered five babies, three in the back of a car and two in bath tubs, rescued a group of campers from two tigers who’d escaped their cages from a nearby zoo, and slapped cuffs on a group of nuns who’d decided to rob a liquor store while wearing nothing but titty tassels and Playboy bunny ears—each of these incidences happening on a full moon. Some of the wildest nights of my life have happened during full moons, most of which will remain locked in a vault, along with a pair of diamond handcuffs that I’m pretty sure once belonged to Tommy Lee. Now, also old, by the way.
I pocketed my phone and secured my gun. Taking care not to touch any of the dolls, I pulled myself onto the lowest branch of the tree, then onto to the next, then the next, testing each before releasing my weight. Being a six-four, two-thirty one-time badass had taught me both the brittleness of branches and bones.
“’Scuse me, Chucky,” I muttered, passing a doll that I swear had changed positions since I’d started climbing.
Once at the top, I gripped the branch above me for stability and peered down at the cemetery in the distance, at the exact spot I’d been sitting not ten minutes earlier. A beam of moonlight highlighted the fresh grave. It was a perfect view of the gravesite, and of the funeral hours earlier.