Mur held up her hand. “Mr. Pleasant, I’m afraid I have to ask you to step up against that tree over there. I need to make sure you aren’t carrying a weapon.”
“You can’t frisk me! You haven’t read me my rights,” George protested.
“That’s because I’m not arresting you, nitwit,” Murray said. “However, a body has been found near here and, until proven otherwise, we are looking at a potential homicide. You, Mr. Pleasant, were found hiding in the bushes near the scene, so that makes you a potential suspect. Now are you going to cooperate or am I going to have to—”
George paled. “Homicide? Body?” Abruptly, he deflated, his bravado vanishing like wisps of smoke. He obediently leaned up against the cedar and Murray patted him down, then stood back, holding up a cell phone. She examined it briefly, then handed it back to him.
“Okay. Come with us, please. I’ll need you to answer some questions.” She maneuvered him in line, sandwiching him between Jimbo and herself. I was still boiling over his appearance. Not only did we have to deal with a dead body, but now we had to baby-sit a whiny, spoiled brat.
As we neared the clearing where I’d been sucked into the energy of the woods, George stumbled and Jimbo smacked against his back. With a low growl, the biker yanked George into the air, holding him by his collar. “You pinhead. Can’t you watch where you’re going?”
George, his feet dangling a good six inches off the ground, started to kick at Jimbo, but then apparently thought the better of it and stopped. Jimbo dropped him like a sack of potatoes and George hit the ground, scrambling out of Jimbo’s reach.
As we entered the wild patch of woods, I stopped and raised my hand. Once again, the tendrils came searching for me.
Mur pushed her way forward to my side, where she steadied me. “What is it?” she asked, interrupting the unwelcome trance.
“There’s something hostile . . . this forest doesn’t want us here.” I noticed that George had slowed to a bare crawl. His face was pale and he turned toward me, the belligerence wiped clean from his face.
“I’ve never felt anything like this before,” he said, his voice hushed. “This is a bad, bad place. Something awful happened out here.”
“Brilliant, Einstein.” Jimbo shook his head in disgust.
I shushed him. “George, I know what you’re feeling. I can feel it, too.”
George searched my face for answers. Obviously he’d never dealt with energies as powerful as these before. “What is it?”
I shook my head. “Dunno yet, but whatever you do, keep your mind clear. Don’t tune in to it.” With a little luck, his aura wouldn’t be strong enough to attract its attention. I turned to Mur. “What do you think about all this?”
She took a long breath, focused, then let it out with a shudder. “These forests are far older than mankind. I know too many legends about this neck of the woods to ever let my guard down out here. I’m not as good of a medium as you are, which is why I suggested that Jimmy ask you to come out here and check things out.” She gave me a sheepish smile. So, she’d been in on this.
We were nearing the point where I’d veered off the path and found Scar’s body. I led them through the thrashed ferns, dreading what was ahead. As we approached the tree under which Scar now rested, Jimbo moved forward and knelt down, brushing away the flies that were circling the back of the man’s head. A cloud of stench rose up and, shaking, Jimbo backed away and squatted near the tree. He let out a low sigh.
“Yeah, it’s Scar. I don’t need to see his face. That jacket . . . I bought it for him on his last birthday.”
Murray winced and pulled out her notebook. “Jimmy, it’s going to be okay. We’ll find out who did this.”
“No, you won’t,” he said. “Regardless of your prodding, the cops ain’t gonna beat themselves up looking for whoever killed one of the Klickavail Valley bikers.” He shook his head. “Besides, I think the Klakatat Monster got him. Remember the footprint in my garden? And the boys have been hearing some strange things go on up there the past few weeks . . . hoodoo strange. I think the monster’s awake.”
He impatiently stood up and strode across the clearing, staring into the deep woods that stretched for miles beyond this point. Murray let out a long sigh, then went back to examining the body and the area. At a loss, I looked around for George. Somebody ought to keep an eye on the pipsqueak.
He was standing near the edge of the clearing, talking on his cell phone. When he saw me looking at him, I heard him say, “Yeah, right, later,” and he folded the phone and stuffed it in his pocket.
Wondering just who had he been talking to, I meandered over to his side. He gave me a questioning glance, then jabbed his finger toward Scar’s body and said in a loud voice, “That’s got to be the grossest thing I’ve ever seen. So, his ghost tell you who did it yet?”
I stared at him. “You really are a callous little bastard, aren’t you? Scar was probably murdered, and all you come up with are one-liners?”
“Sorry,” he said, shrugging. “Guess I’m just not used to this stuff like you are.” A clouded expression crossed his face and he froze. After a moment, he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “Shit!”
I rolled my eyes. “What’s wrong now?”
He blinked. “Emerald, I know you don’t like me but I gotta tell you, honest to God, I just had a vision.”
He was right. I didn’t like him. But I knew he was telling the truth. His aura was swirling so bright I didn’t need to be in a trance to feel it; his energy had been caught up in some sort of vortex. Yeah, he’d seen something all right. Whether or not the vision was accurate was another matter.
“Tell me what you saw.”
His voice went ringing through the clearing. “I saw a creature, a beast that’s not a beast. And then I saw that dude . . . there was blood everywhere . . .”