the keys to the Ford off the table near the door. I slip on my work boots and grab my father’s coat from the rack on the wall. It smells of earth, of feathers. I shut the door behind me and head out into the night.
Poplar Street is dark as I drive through town. I pass the station as it sits silently.
No one’s out this late. Some shops have low lights that reflect in the front windows. The banner for the “Jump Into Summer Festival” glows briefly as my headlights hit it, but then I pass under it and it is dark again. I leave the main drag behind, turning onto Old Valley Road, which winds up through the hills that surround Roseland. I’m trying to remain calm, but not knowing where Calliel might be is doing nothing for my nerves. I almost expect to get to the sheriff’s house and see it razed to the ground, Calliel standing above it like some dark avenging angel.
I’m a guardian, he whispers in my head. I guard.
Yes, but he also protects. And he’s found someone he’s deemed a threat. I switch off my headlights as I round the final corner, familiar enough with the
road to drive it in the dark. The house is not destroyed as part of me had anticipated, but rather is lit up, as if someone is still awake this late on a Tuesday. I pull the truck into a copse of trees off to the side of the road well away from the house, hiding it in case someone passes by.
I hurry up the side of the road, feeling slightly ridiculous at being crouched over, but I need to make sure nothing has gone horribly wrong, or at least find out what happened. I cross a ditch rather than head directly up the driveway, then cut across the yard. The lights inside are bright in the dark, but still muffled by curtains pulled across the picture windows, three cars in the driveway. One I recognize as the sheriff’s SUV. The other two I don’t know. There’s enough visibility for me to see a floodlight attached to the front of the house. I go toward the rear in a wide arc to avoid setting the light off. There’s another light on in the house at the back. The ground around the house drops off. There must be a cellar, a rarity in Oregon. The light at the back is coming from a window just overhead that I can’t see into, but it’s propped halfway open. I smell cigarette smoke.
Then I hear voices.
“I told you to blow that shit outside,” Griggs rumbles. “I don’t know why you
gotta smoke inside my house.”
“What can I say,” a male voice I don’t recognize says, “it’s an addiction.” Laughter. Several voices. All male.
“I don’t care,” Griggs says. “Blow it out the window.”
“Someone’s in a mood tonight,” another man says. “This has really got you
spooked. I don’t think I’ve seen you like this before. Not even when Big Ed—” “I told you not to mention that around me,” the sheriff snaps, cutting him off.
“Look, I don’t know how much of what he said was bullshit. Nothing has come
through the police station, and the field office in Eugene and Portland said they
haven’t sent anyone out this way.”
“Would they tell you if they had?” the smoker asks. “Seems to me if they were
investigating, they wouldn’t tell you a damn thing.”
“I’ve got a guy who owed me a few favors,” Griggs says. “He called around,
checked some stuff out. Nothing.”
“We still going to move operations?”
“I don’t know yet,” Griggs says. “I don’t want to, but if someone is poking
around, we may have to.”
“What is your timeline, then?” a new voice says. That one I recognize. Mayor
Judd Walken. My mouth goes dry.
“Give it a few weeks,” Griggs says. “If need be, we could do it on the day of the
festival, when everyone is distracted. I hate to lose our position now, though. It’s
prime fucking real estate. No one even knows about it. But it’s whatever the boss
wants.”
“This whole thing has bad mojo written all over it,” the smoker complains. “First
the guy in the river. Then that fucking meteor thing falling right near there. Jesus,
Griggs! It’s like the universe is telling you to get the fuck out, and you’re saying we
need to wait?”
“Now, now,” the mayor says over the sheriff’s angry growl. “It’s just a bunch of
random occurrences. Let’s not assign this to some higher cosmic power. I’ve already