Harness (Death’s own pale horses) and scholarly plough the sands, 4/?
This time when Tur - Rufus leaves, he deigns to leave a phone number
“That’s my sister,” he explains. “She generally knows where I am.”
“She’s a hunter too?”
“Nah, she’s a kindergarten teacher down in Omaha. Married, couple of kids…real respectable. “ Rufus half-smirks. “She knows the deal though.”
Bobby looks at him. He’s learned that sometimes looking at Rufus and waiting produces the best
results.
“Our parents,” Rufus says shortly. “It was a poltergeist.”
“I’m sorry,” Bobby says.
“I was sixteen. Hannah was twenty and away at college for most of it, but she saw enough to know
what’s real.”
“And…her family?”
“Got no idea,” says Rufus sharply. “So when someone answers that number, you ask for Mrs. Hannah Delacroix, and don’t talk to nobody else. Say you’re a business associate of mine. She’ll know what it means.”
“Got it.”
“Alright. Now I got reports of something in ND snacking on campers. You ain’t ready for that kind of creature. Go get those books, brush up on your shootin, then we’ll talk again.”
“Brush - I shot that thing!” Bobby objects. “I got it off you.”
“Yeah, but you hesitated,” Rufus says without judgement.
There’s - really no good answer to that. Bobby knows why he hesitated, but he supposes the reason won’t matter to Rufus. He needs to be automatic about it, machine-like. Could also do with increasing his stamina, to be honest with himself.
“Alright,” Bobby agrees. “Take the truck.”
Rufus narrows his eyes and pretends to consider. “Seems sensible,” he admits. He carts some of the stuff from the Arrow to the restored compact. Bobby winces a little at thought of Rufus driving the vehicle he just repaired, but he figures he owes the guy. A lot.
*
The dead hunter in Delaware was named Charity Lederman, if the majority of junk mail piled up in the box is to be believed. Bobby easily breaks into her house: the walls and floor are covered in arcane symbols but there’s little to keep out a common human. There’s a herb garden out back. Vandals already got to it - plants are torn up and tossed with their roots reaching weakly to the sky, coke cans and cigarette butts in the soil. The house isn’t touched yet, despite the ease of entrance: fear, maybe.
It takes Bobby back - he’s broken into a place or two in the time, in the years between his folks and - all that, and landing that job laying asphalt in Rapid City. Mostly derelicts. This place isn’t derelict, though it’s unkempt: books everywhere, dust and - bottles. Huh. Seems drinking is a habit in the hunting community, not that he’s one to talk. There’s also a pantry that, when someone finds it, will secure the late Ms. Lederman’s reputation as a witch. It’s full of jars, dried plants and metal basins. He peers closer at the contents of a jar and then recoils - that was definitely a bone.
He gathers as many books as he can bag. There’s no library - they’re all over the place. Titles range from the Daemonologie of James I to The World of the Jinn to Vampires: Myth and Truth. They’re all annotated: helpfully, some have ‘CRAP’ written in bold beneath the title pages, and these he discards. He prioritizes the biggest and heaviest: also old books. A hunch tells him books from the days when more people believed in the truth are more valuable.
When he’s done, he looks stands and looks around the place. he feels like he ought to do or say something. Charity Lederman lived and died here, probably saved a lot of people one way or another. all he knows is that she read a lot, drank a lot, and got old by hunter standards.
he says, ‘Ma’am,’ to the empty air, and feels like an idiot, but then he has an idea. when grandpa Singer was toasting his army buddies, he used to get a bottle and tip good whiskey on the ground. Waste of drink, Bobby’s dad had said, but now he thinks he gets it. he finds one of the bottles that still got a decent amount inside. The place is full of flammables already, not like one little spill's gonna make any difference.
"Rest in peace, Ms. Linderman," he says as he tips a few drops of good
whiskey on the dusty floorboards.
It catches a little in his throat.
*
Rufus doesn't call again for several weeks. Bobby reads. The world of the supernatural is deep and vast and fascinating. Now he believes that there's more things in heaven and earth, he rapidly finds himself absorbed, penciling his own notes and questions next to Lederman's colorful comments. Drawn again and again to the chapters on demons, though it's tearing at a wound, he fills notebook after notebook with abbreviated legends, protection charms and wards.
The chapters on possession are the worst. he can’t not read them, though he frequently has to put the book down. when a demon possesses a person it supresses the personality - but victims report being ‘awake’ for some of it. they can remember the Thing inside them, some a little, some a lot, how it used their body and voice as they looked on, helpless. He’s had one hope - that Karen didn't know how she died - and now he believes that unlikely.
In the third week he calls the sister, who informs him that her brother is in Iowa, fine, busy, tracking down a werewolf and doesn't need any help. She talks quietly and quickly, clearly none too happy to be discussing it, and calls,
"No-one honey, just a telemarketer," to someone in the background.
Bobby realises then that he wasn't calling because he was worried about Rufus. He was calling because he's lonely.
*
“Anything in that library on Olitiau?”
Turner doesn’t bother with niceties.
“Well - what - kind of thing is it? Spirit? Monster? ” Bobby’s at least learned enough to start asking the right questions.
“Creature, corporeal.”
Bobby has several bestiaries now, he’s already reaching for the one he’s found most useful and turning to the index. There’s nothing under ‘Olitiau’, but an entry for ‘bat, cave’ (the book is too old for the maker to appreciate the cultural reference). These cave bats seem to have originated in Central Africa, a kind of humanoid reptile/winged rodent (reports vary). They prefer forest caves, and dine on meat. They aren’t particular about what kind. From the late 18th century, a handful of people have claimed encounters in Mississippi, Tennessee and New Orleans, and the author speculates on how a cave bat could have crossed over by slave ship: stowed away as a means to catch easy prey, or captured by slavers as some kind of exotic beast? Scribbled in the margin is, AKA OLITIAU AND KONGOMATU. Bobby tries an older collection of traveller’s tales, boasting to document ‘Straynge, Marvellous and verie Horryble Discoveries of the New Worlde’. The chapter on Central Africa mentions the Kongumatu:
This is a Thing whiche is lyke a DRAGON; that the Peoples of CENTRALL and NORTHERN AFRICA assure us hath harassed them many times. It is a winged beast, with a great beake and horryble tallons, and its hide is lyke to leather. CHURCHILL in his recent VOYAGES hath this assurance from MR JOHN BARBOT, then AGENT-GENERAL of the ROYAL COMPANY OF AFRICA that he himself heard from the natives:
that there are winged serpents or dragons having a forked tail and a prodigious wide mouth, full of sharp teeth, extremely mischievous to mankind, and more particularly to small children.
Sometimes these Peoples do worship and revere these Kongumatu, as they call it, as gods, but others hold them in great fear and loathing. Their priests, that is the practitioners of HOODOO, have by ingeniouse methods discovered that the Beast may be killed with a blessed speare properly prepared.
In the margin Lederman has annotated, ‘Any blade that will pierce. Must be genuine hoodoo priest not bullshit’.
Bobby calls Mrs. Delacroix back.
“I got some information Rufus was looking for.”
“Alright, tell me, I’ll let him know.”
“No,” Bobby hears himself say. “I’ll tell him myself. Tell me how to contact him.”
Pause. “Why?”
“I want in on the hunt.”
“You know Rufus works alone.”
“Not always. I helped him get rid of a ghost a few weeks back.”
Pause. Muttering. In background he can hear paper rustling.
“He’s at the Sleep Rite motel in Yazoo City, MS.” She rattles off a number. “Ask for Luther Vandross.”
Bobby snorts a little. “Really?”
“The places my brother stays don’t exactly ID check.” It’s crisp: the first Bobby has heard from her that sounds like a real emotion.
“Okay.” Pause. “Thanks.”
“Alright. Listen…” her voice lowers. “I’m, well, I'm glad my brother’s not going it alone. That he’s letting someone help.”
Bobby wants to say something self-depreciating about how much help he’ll be, but something holds him back.
“That’s okay,” he says. “I’ll, uh, do my best to look out for him.”
“Thank you,” she says, and hangs up.
Bobby dials the motel.
Part Five
A/N: Excerpt from Churchill’s Collection of Voyages (1746), attributed to John Barber, is real, and can be found on p. 213 of vol v.