The Wicked Hour Read online

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  To Doug.

  To the dream.

  PROLOGUE

  LAST APRIL IN UPSTATE NEW YORK

  The man grabbed a towel, wiped his face, and caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He felt odd. Not himself. His smile was strong and dazzling, but his eyes were couched and wary. He had holding-back eyes.

  He went downstairs. The house was old. The banister creaked. He could feel his insides ripping apart. Time was slipping away. He felt an urgent need to do something.

  In the sunny dining room, he drank his coffee and read the newspaper. He stared at the headline dominating the front page. COP KILLS CROW KILLER! First of all, she wasn’t a cop, she was a detective—but that wouldn’t have the same ring to it, he supposed. It was all about the clicks nowadays.

  He fetched another cup of coffee, then read the sports page. He waited with mounting tension, expecting to be disrupted any second. It upset him that she was so silent this morning. He tilted his head and listened for the smallest sound coming from the basement. Nothing.

  He found it difficult to stay focused.

  The dining room was littered with fast-food containers, scribbled notes on lined yellow pads, and stacks of books. The house was silent, but the stillness had sounds running through it—innocuous buzzes and ticks you could trace to mundane realities, like the creak of a floorboard expanding; the rattling cough of a radiator; the scratch of a tree limb that needed pruning; the flap of a loose utility line against the siding. Eerie sounds that were little more than an irritation.

  He paused. He listened. It worried him—this morning’s silence. Shafts of golden light filtered in through the windows. It was going to be a beautiful day.

  He put down the paper, went into the living room, picked up the remote, and selected Mozart’s Violin Concerto in D Major. The house filled with beautiful leaps and trills. Piano concertos and operas moved him deeply, but he especially loved the violins. Sometimes he would stand in front of the speakers, rest his hands on the cabinetry, and feel the vibrations of the French horns and kettledrums pounding through the bones of his arms, until the music resonated inside his rib cage. He could feel the composer’s fingers landing on the keyboard and the mellow notes of the violins squeezing through his veins, and he imagined that he was holding Mozart’s or Stravinsky’s bleeding heart in his hands.

  Now a tormented cry pierced the loveliness. He released an unsteady breath and cranked the volume on the sound system. He lived on a dead-end street. People rarely ventured out this way, and the house was well-insulated. Nobody could hear the screams unless they drove past the property with their windows rolled down at just the right moment. Very rarely did anyone drive out this way.

  He went outside and stood in his pajamas and slippers in the backyard, waiting for the next outburst. He let his eyes lose their focus until the landscape of overgrown gardens and trees became a blur of color and shadow, like an impressionist painting. He surrendered to a greater reality and listened to the birdsong in the woods, wishing that he could shake this version of events out of his skull. Perhaps a parallel universe was waiting for him around the next heartbeat?

  An agonized scream pierced the morning calm.

  Loud.

  Terrifying.

  It made him shudder.

  The hairs rose everywhere on his body, and yet he did nothing. He remained motionless and waited for this delicious agony to subside. It always did eventually.

  In the lull that followed, he could hear the wind in the trees. He could hear the waxwings and kingbirds deep in the woods. Birds were descendants of the dinosaurs, those massive killing machines that had ruled the earth once, but were nothing more than fluttering flowers now—singing their sweet, sad warrior songs in the treetops where the foxes and raccoons couldn’t get them.

  Another piercing scream.

  Like a splash of cold water.

  He went inside, locked the door, and paced back and forth, burning off excess energy. Today was the day. A smile plied his lips. Prickles raced up his spine. He listened to the combination of sounds coming from upstairs and downstairs, like musical notes with pauses in between.

  Low groan.

  A squeaky sob.

  Rest.

  Moan.

  A stomach-churning wail.

  Rest.

  You could compose a concerto in A minor with these kaleidoscopic tones. One from above, the other below. He raised his arms slowly, his right hand holding an invisible bow, the fingers of his left hand pressing against invisible strings. He played to an invisible audience—his muscles moving with precision, greasy strands of hair falling across his face. The violins were grieving. The entire house was weeping. His shoulders fell earthward. Tonight, he would see those cloudy eyes in his dreams. And in the morning, he would wake up with the smell of death in his nose.

  1

  SIX MONTHS LATER ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT

  October 31. The monsters were out in force tonight. They’d taken over Burning Lake, New York, and Detective Natalie Lockhart was powerless to stop them. She adjusted her 99-cent eye mask and headed through a huge crowd of costumed revelers, making her way toward the town square. The night air was cool and sweet-smelling. Autumn leaves crunched underfoot. The annual ritual was in full swing—a monthlong celebration culminating in Halloween’s Eve, a night full of dancing and drinking and having as much spooky fun as you could fit into one wild twenty-four-hour period.

  “Love your costume!” a passing vampire shouted, and Natalie smiled back. She was dressed in her old police uniform. She’d pulled it out of mothballs, and it felt loose on her skinnier frame. All the detectives in the Criminal Investigations Unit had been assigned undercover duties tonight and were required to wear a costume, but Natalie didn’t feel like parading around as a mermaid or a princess or a witch. After spending the past six Halloweens on foot patrol, monitoring the streets as a BLPD officer, she decided to do the same thing this year, minus her service weapon and duty belt. She would be a zombie cop. Before her shift began, Natalie let down her hair, put on a chalky foundation and dark lipstick, added a dribble of fake blood to one cheek, slipped on a blue eye mask and a plastic joke badge, and told anyone who asked, “This is my costume. Like it or lump it.” Her fellow detectives had greeted her announcement with clammy silence. Only Luke had the temerity to ask, “Is that wise, Natalie?”

  After thinking about it now, she realized no … it wasn’t the wisest decision she’d ever made. But it represented a subliminal desire to be a cop again, not the tabloid-splashed detective who’d shot the Crow Killer point-blank. She wanted to turn back time and walk the beat again, like she had in the good old days before Grace died. Nothing positive had happened to Natalie since last April. She’d lost everything that ever mattered to her.

  The downtown district was dazzling tonight, lit by thousands of twinkle lights. The sizeable crowds had no clue that Natalie
and her fellow detectives were working undercover, communicating via their department smartphones using secure, encrypted software to disseminate real-time communications. Her phone with its earpiece disguised as white AirPods allowed her to go about undetected, transmitting video feed to the rest of the unit, who were spread out across town, monitoring for trouble spots.

  By all estimates, more than a hundred thousand people had descended on this self-proclaimed epicenter for magic and witchcraft. With a little help from the surrounding jurisdictions, a total of two hundred and twenty-five police officers were safeguarding downtown Burning Lake tonight—cops on foot, cops on bikes, cops in squad cars—along with forty plainclothes officers and the BLPD’s seven detectives. So far, the radio chatter had been nonstop—illegal drones were spotted flying above the fairgrounds, drunken tourists had broken through the barriers and climbed on top of vehicles, fights had broken out in multiple locations, shoplifters and pickpockets were having a field day. There were unexpected road closures and arguments over parking spaces. Most of the public lots and garages were filled to capacity, and traffic congestion was heavy in places.

  “This is Command,” Lieutenant Luke Pittman’s voice sputtered in her ear.

  Natalie tensed as she always did nowadays when she heard Luke speak and adjusted her earpiece. “CIU-seven,” she responded, while the other detectives in the unit chimed in as well. “CIU-four … CIU-two … received…”

  “We’ve got a boisterous crowd spilling onto Beulah Miles Road, which is supposed to be closed to pedestrian traffic,” Luke told them from the nerve center of tonight’s operation, the dispatch area of the station house with its telecommunications equipment and mapping software. “That street is officially closed, but a huge crowd is coming out of the Witches’ Ball, and I need a couple of warm bodies down there to monitor the situation while we send over a few squad cars to clear it.”

  “I’m two blocks away, Lieu,” Detective Augie Vickers volunteered, his take-charge voice booming in her earpiece. “You want me to head over there?”

  “Go ahead, Augie.”

  “Me also,” Mike Anderson chimed in.

  “Go, Mike. The rest of the team continue along your assigned routes,” Luke said.

  “You don’t need any more of us?” Natalie asked.

  “Negative. Continue along your assigned routes. Out.”

  She signed off and grimaced at her phone. “Fuck you, too.” Luke’s cold professionalism wounded her, but it no longer surprised her. After Grace passed away last April, Natalie had done her very best to push him away. She didn’t know why. It was just that Luke’s sympathy, his kindness, only seemed to make things worse, like poking a raw wound and never letting it heal. The more he tried to help, the worse Natalie felt, until finally Luke gave up and complied with her wishes, leaving her to her grief. Now she missed him. Really missed him. They used to meet casually after work just to gripe and shoot the shit. Their friendship had spanned decades, reaching all the way back to their tumultuous childhoods, and Natalie had secretly been in love with him forever. Their mutual alienation was painful, and lately she felt a desire to move closer to Luke, but the misunderstandings had piled up and the cracks in their relationship had become chasms.

  Not only was her relationship with Luke on the fritz but Detective Brandon Buckner was avoiding her, too. Brandon and Natalie had once been good buddies, but the tragic events of last April had torn them apart. He recently confessed he didn’t want to hate Natalie—he just couldn’t help himself. Whenever he looked at her, Brandon was reminded of his dead wife. He refused to talk to her outside of their official duties and had taken the night shift in order to avoid working with her. Every time she interacted with Luke or Brandon, she wanted to crawl home and pull the covers over her head.

  Now her scalp itched beneath the sweaty hatband, and her feet ached. Natalie had been walking for three hours straight without a break. The air smelled spicy and greasy from the open-air market food carts. There were tacky storefront displays of broomstick-riding witches, swooping bats, and a mock-dungeon with skeletons chained to the walls. People screamed with delight at the Freddy Krueger and Beetlejuice look-alikes. The BLPD was stretched thin to accommodate long lines for various guided tours, museum exhibits, Halloween-themed balls, fortune-teller booths, haunted houses, and graveyard tours. Visitors could buy combination tickets, and comfortable shoes were recommended. For the kids, there were corn mazes, pumpkin-decorating contests, and other family-friendly activities.

  Natalie wiped her sweaty hands on her pants. All she wanted was a small square of space to call her own—just for a minute. She hadn’t taken a break in hours. She crossed the town square, past the filled-to-capacity pubs and neon-lit occult shops selling everything from mojo balls to freakish displays of “once-alive” things fermenting in glass jars. There were sightseeing double-decker buses, street performers, and barkers promoting guided tours. Merchants offered free samples of sugar skulls and sickly sweet candies, as much as you could eat.

  A thousand overlapping conversations echoed across the square. Batman and Wonder Woman were extremely popular this year. So were Pennywise the Clown and all the Disney princesses—Ariel, Belle, Rapunzel. She spotted Lord Voldemort holding hands with Miss Dead Universe and Kylo Ren kissing Lizzie Borden, along with the usual contingent of ghosts, witches, ghouls, zombies, and murdered Victorian ladies.

  On the next block, a group of teenage girls were huddled together at the curb, laughing and giggling. They’d gone full Goth—four of them were dressed in black, and a fifth wore a bloodstained white dress. The four Goth girls held rubber knives dripping with fake blood, and it took Natalie a moment to realize who they were supposed to be—Daisy, Grace, Bunny, and Lindsey, along with their unwitting victim in white, Willow Lockhart. The girls didn’t notice Natalie, but she recognized them vaguely from Ellie’s school. Chatting away excitedly, they crossed the street and disappeared around the corner.

  Natalie felt loose as liquid, no bones to hold her upright. Her heart beat erratically as she ducked into the nearest bistro. She locked herself in the restroom and stood for a numb moment, shivering with surprise and anger. At home, there was a chart on the refrigerator door delineating the seven stages of grief. First came shock and denial; then came pain and guilt; followed by anger and bargaining; then depression and loneliness; fighting spirit; reconstruction; and finally, acceptance and hope. She couldn’t wait to get to that last fucking stage. She figured she must be hovering over the fourth stage right about now.

  Depression and loneliness.

  She’d isolated herself from the people who mattered the most.

  There was only one person she could turn to in times like this. Natalie took out her phone and called Dr. Russ Swinton, the wise old man of medicine, director of the bustling intensive care unit at Langston Memorial Hospital. A no-nonsense professional in his mid-fifties, saddlebag-tough and emotionless, which made him exactly the kind of person she needed right now. Twenty-one years ago, Russ had examined Natalie after she’d been attacked in the woods. Now he was helping her through one of the most difficult periods of her life.

  After five rings, he picked up. “Yes?” he said in a crisp, intimidating tone. There were muffled hospital sounds in the background.

  “Sorry to bother you, I know it’s late…”

  “Natalie, what’s up?”

  “You said I should call if I experienced any unusual symptoms…”

  “Yes—why? What’s going on?”

  What’s up? What’s up? She suddenly wasn’t sure how to answer that complicated question. Her mind filled with so many thoughts, it went blank. “My heart is pounding. Feels like it’s skipping beats.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Town Square. In Maurice’s Bistro. I’m on duty tonight. Undercover.”

  “What triggered the palpitations?”

  “I saw a group of teenage girls dressed up for Halloween as Grace and Daisy and Bunny, you know, carry
ing bloody knives … the whole bit.”

  “I see.” He paused. “That must’ve been very jarring.”

  Six months ago, Natalie’s older sister, Grace, had confessed to killing two people: first, her best friend, Daisy Buckner, who’d been threatening to reveal a horrifying secret they shared. When Grace and Daisy were teenagers, they formed a coven and killed Natalie’s other sister, Willow, stabbing her twenty-seven times. Willow’s boyfriend at the time, Justin Fowler, had gone to prison for it. And then last April, shortly after Grace had confessed these terrible things to Natalie, she’d taken her own life.

  And so yes, it was rather jarring to see five teenage girls dressed up for Halloween like two of Natalie’s beloved sisters, one of whom had killed the other twenty years ago.

  Jarring.

  “Are you experiencing any other symptoms, Natalie?”

  “Shortness of breath.” She swallowed a sob. “Do you think it could have something to do with the reduced dosage?” For a while, she’d been on antidepressants, and Dr. Swinton was helping her taper off them.

  “It sounds to me like a panic attack. I can’t be sure over the phone. The ER’s a zoo right now, but if you can make it down here, I’ll squeeze you in.”

  “No, that’s okay,” she backtracked, staring at her reflection in the mirror. She had stopped panting. Her heart rate was returning to normal, although her face was slick with sweat. She cleared her throat and said, “I’m feeling better now.” She placed two fingers over the pulse point on her throat. “It helps to talk.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m feeling much better. Thanks, Doc.”

  “No problem. Listen. Call Sofia in the morning and set up an appointment for this week, whenever you can make it in. I’d like to run a few tests. I think we should decrease the dosage by twenty-five milligrams every two weeks, instead of fifty milligrams like we’ve been doing.”