Night Watch EP3: Convergence

Parts one and two introduced the reader to a world much like our own. Nosy neighbors, blood thirsty demons, and truths we easily ignore.

Silvy, a medium failing to escape her destiny, finds herself face to face with the newly instated neighborhood watch.

Silvy wields the bag of dog shit like a weapon. Despite its loathsome stench this new habit made her feel safer. It had been over a week since Detective Barbara Wilson’s visit. The change in mood was almost immediate. Nobody in the neighborhood was seen at night anymore.

A few days ago either Suzanne or Phill would be waiting, eager to interrogate her on her personal life. And lately with everyone knowing Silvy knew a big city detective, she was barely holding onto her secrets. The sun left silence in its wake. A silence she craved, and she wasn’t about to let the leech sucking up the life around her to win.

After her freefall into the pit of Rudy’s last moments, resolve latched around her, an armor against whatever danger hunted for her. Whether it was a maniac or a fiend, it still wanted the same thing in the end: her blood.

We were right, chicky.

Rudy’s words before thrusting her back to this reality. But what were they right about? They had lingered for so long on an occult conclusion. A summoning or even possession gone wrong, or horribly right depending on the group. Rudy had clicked his tongue each time she balked at the idea of a supernatural entity chewing on its victims, reminding her evenly how easily she communicated with the dead. But speaking with the energy of a murdered soul just seemed more realistic than carving summoning circles, chanting a dead language, and getting anything beyond a return to sender scenario.

What she and Rudy did agree on though, was the pattern. There was no denying this thing thrived in the cooler months. While the rest of the world was hibernating this son of a bitch was energized. The first week of November meant a first victim only for six more to follow until the winter solstice. As if the wannabe Jack the Ripper was swallowed by the darkest night.

She looked down at Slim, the master out here. He had been sniffing the same blade of grass for ten minutes now before pulling her in the direction of the stop sign where they would spend another ten minutes. Silvy didn’t mind though. Not only did she have so much information to synthesize, but she also got to go outside whenever she wanted. Slim only had a few chances a day to smell something other than their apartment, and with how restless they both had been these past few nights, one of them deserved some sort of relaxation.

They scraped their way back up the main road of the community. Before, each house had set their own glow on this dark stretch of road, now each window was dark from curtains pulled tight. No kids stretching out the hour before bed. No moms exchanging gossip of the day or holiday mixer plans. Just a pooling silence. Silvy didn’t expect the pang of unease from being so alone.

She sighed as the final hill between them and the safety of home appeared before them. Another walk through darkness survived. No murderers and no neighbors. Still a pebbling on her nape had her turning to the thick group of trees hiding the side street that led to the guard house. It was becoming harder to tell between the rising paranoia and her instincts. Silvy hadn’t been hunted before. In fact her body had been spared from carnage time and time again. Slim was now hunched next to her staring at the shadows. Silvy watched his fur begin to stand on end and a low growl escape his curling jowls.

Before she can even give a gentle tug towards home, a blinding light pulls her from the trees. Was someone else confronting the night? The solid beam of white split into three, and Silvy’s heart resumed its pounding pace.

Silvy scrambled for that resolve, straightened her spine, and gripped the knotted poop bag. Murderers aren’t known to enjoy shit thrown at them, right? She briefly wondered if she should loosen the knot and go for the splatter effect. There were at least three people up ahead, and she only had one bag. The one night Slim didn’t poop three times is the night where she gets chewed on by some freak.

“Quick, Slim, I need you to poop,” Silvy whispers.

She looks down at Slim expectantly. His only response was a tug in the direction of the bobbing lights.

“We really need to work on your survival instincts,” she hisses.

The lights pause. Measuring the darkness. Sensing them. Silvy never carried a flashlight. It seemed like a beacon of vulnerability to her. She wondered briefly if she should call out to them. Invite them into her air space. Make it easier for them to stab her. She shuddered and looked around for one of those flowering bushes Suzanne hated so much.

A whine from Slim had her looking down. His ears were pinned back and the butt was wiggling. A sign that he recognized the scent of the encroaching party.

“Silvy, is that you?”

Relief at the familiar voice lasted two seconds before her arm was nearly yanked from its socket.

“Hey David,” she called back, “Slim is coming your way!”

She drops the leash, and watches him take off. Her one hand felt too heavy now with the poop bag. A wave of embarrassment collided with the last remnants of her fight or flight response. It felt asinine to still cling to the shit bag, but it is what it is. Dogs poop, and HOA mandates all neighbors to pick it up. A basic rule among their society. An easy one to remember, especially if you ever had the fortune to track foreign feces on your carpet.

Silvy walked into the splash of dim light on the pavement, and held up a hand in greeting. Yips and whines of Slim’s appreciation were loud against the quiet of the group.

“You really should carry a flashlight, Silvy. Especially with everything that’s been going on! I could have mistook you for a threat-”

“and announce my presence for the slasher?” she interjected.

David just quirked a brow and scoffed. As if she was the idiot endangering herself. Silvy took in his companions and grimaced. The drones of the newly instated night watch stared at her with the same exasperated expression. All while white knuckling their flashlights. The poor fools didn’t have a biological war weapon like her, and somehow still felt superior.

“C’mon Slim,” she called, “with me.”

Slim rolled back to his feet, diligently nosing each hand before returning to Silvy with a satisfied tongue wagging smile. Camile wiped her hand on her jeans with obvious disgust.

“How has your first week gone, see anything interesting?” Silvy asks, figuring she should make an effort to find some sort of clue.

The group exchanges glances, eyes flickering, and suddenly she was in third grade again. Exclusion, like a familiar scent, once felt there was no forgetting just how alone you were. Before they could continue their silent conversation consisting of widening eyes and dipping mouths, Silvy started to walk away. It wasn’t worth it. Whatever excuse they were going to throw at her about confidentiality or tragic endings was as thin as her patience. That feeling of being watched hadn’t faded, and she longed for the weight of her comforter.

Camile grabbed her arm though. Tugging Silvy back into the fold. Silvy gave her a questioning look. The concern in her gaze had Silvy searching the others’ faces. That’s when she noticed their hands, stained dark. The sweat shining on their brows. Their chests heaving. At last she found David’s eyes, pinpricks in the dark.

Silvy must have looked ready to bolt, because Camile’s nails dig into her arm. Summoning circles and sacrifices swirl in Silvy’s head. The shadows tighten in her peripherals, but there’s Slim, his tail low and wagging.

“Where have you been?” Camile whispers.

“W-walking Slim,” Silvy replies, yanking free from the death grip.

She hated the quivering of her voice. Hated how easily Camile triggered her fight or flight. Hated how she always chose flight.

It’s coming for you–it’s coming to feast.

“Only members of the Neighborhood Watch are supposed to be out past sunset, Silvy,” David said.

He pushes Camlie’s hand away from Silvy’s arm and takes up the space between them. As gentle as ever he grips her shoulders. And there it was, the undeniable smell of blood. A metallic reminder that Silvy didn’t know these people, what they were capable of, or what secrets they shared.

Slim let out a low growl finally catching up to the situation. Silvy smiles as Camile flinches. But Slim isn’t looking at the group of neighbors. He isn’t concerned with the blood soaked hands on her shoulders. Instead he is looking at the trees again. His head low, teeth on display, and hackles raised.

Silvy had only ever seen him in this state once before. When she and Rudy investigated that abandoned warehouse. Rudy had been quizzing her on sigils names, and the uses for the candles and herbs. There had been a sickly sweet smell barely covered by the ash. A burn mark the size of an adult male’s body marred the floorboards. Slim had sensed it before all of them. The shadow lingering, observing.

A sharp bark of warning from Slim had the whole company jumping back with their shaking flashlights pointed to the dark brush.

It’s coming for you, coming to feast.

RUN CHICKY!

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Terrence slid his fingers down the air in front of him, imagining his nails were razors. A wisp of sound and the tear appeared. A long line blurred in the center of the apartment. Egret Point was the only thing on his mind as stepped into the sliced reality.

Blurring lights and suffocating wind surrounded him briefly before he landed by the front gate of the community. The guard was oblivious with his feet propped up on the desk. Terrence pushed past the gilded beaks of the egrets in flight, and slipped into the neighborhood.

Egret Point was a cookie cutter display of gray paint and manicured lawns. On one side there sat a row of single family homes that faced the road with the sign Oriel Crossing at the intersection. Terrence didn’t feel Silvy in that direction. He couldn’t imagine anyone who lived through something so dark choosing to haunt that amount of square feet. He took a step towards the set of tall buildings to the right of the road, and stopped. His nostrils flare.

Sulfur.

“It’s here, I feel its excitement,” Krys confirms.

Terrence grips a pouch from his pocket, an herb mixture of black pepper and mugwort. Simultaneously heightening his intuition while strengthening the barrier between him and the hell spawn. Silent as a shadow he moves towards a dark clump of trees. With each step the manic buzzing of a predator about to feast becomes a high pitch static of blood lust. Terrence’s own mouth watered. A Reaper’s own hunger rivaled that of any demon. Without his shield against its temptation he would be as lost to the madness of greed as any common mortal.

Slowly he willed the space to become his. The crawling demand swallowed up the grass and roots until a orb of ebony surrounded him and the creature. He absently heard the sound of a hushed argument, and a low growling.

“Wow! The sound of those fools must be making you drool, huh buddy?” Terrence drawls inches from the crouched form.

A ripple of fabric is the only sign he had surprised the creature.

There was no time for breath. A sharp movement and Terrence was bleeding. His open palm singed from the flames now pouring from him. The white hot heat blinded the creature causing a deafening shriek. With gritted teeth he slammed his palm on the creature’s wrinkled forehead, and began muttering the incantation.

The roots of the trees swarmed its legs, piercing its flesh and pinning it to the soil. More sounds of pain escaped its mouth.

“You see, you don’t belong here. You were not called to come here. Did you forget the stone and dirt will reclaim you?”

Terrence looked down at the twitching form now steaming from the soil soaked roots in its flesh, and tsked.

“You would think your summoner would know better,” Terrence said with his index finger tapping his chin.

He waited for the inevitable. The over confidence to slither out and throw promises at his feet. The typical offers of power and riches. Terrence took the silence as a chance to examine the thing in front of him, and a thing in his chest uncoiled.

It wore human clothes. A tan trench coat draped over bulbous joints and too large limbs that folded in the wrong direction. A mixture of white and brown skin stretched and split over clenched fists too large to be human.

A tapping against his mind’s wall had him retreating inward for a moment. Krys waited there, her eyes wide with terror? Greif?

“What is it? Be quick Krys, you know the risk,” he demanded.

“It’s only…I sense something inside of it Terrence. Something mortal, something like me–”

“Ignore it, Krys. It will try to seduce us in any way it can. It lies.”

He left her there safe behind his walls. He could taste her disappointment mixed with betrayal, but he didn’t have time to train her, to explain. He needed her to trust that he wasn’t keeping her trapped. She wasn’t his hostage.

“You are interesting, Reaper, you taste…different,” the fiend finally spoke.

A long tongue unfolded to flick the air between them. Terrence smiled at the disgust plain on its face.

“What taints you?”

“Me? You a disfigured lump of meat are asking what stains me?” Terrence retorts.

“You can not harm me, Reaper. I can not be smited by the likes of you. The creed does not allow such things.”

“You have eaten quite a bit haven’t you, to remember all that,” Terrence quipped.

He needed it to keep giving him information. A clue to find the root of this rot, the summoner. After the silence stretched Terrence decided to switch tactics.

“You must have been raised by a weak mortal to have run so far away from home. Most can at least hold the leash,” he goaded.

Steam continued to rise from the dark ooze leaving its wounds. The fetters loosen as the trees grow weak from the wrongness of its blood. Terrence pulled an ornate dagger from the air in front of him. The rubies glinted against the void surrounding them.

“I mean I guess I could just kill you here,” he lifted his hand at the creature’s balking mouth, “Yes, yes, I know. No death is permanent, but I am sure whatever master waits for you will be disappointed–”

“You are a fool if you believe the threat of a mortal will be enough for me to betray any secrets,” the creature scoffed.

Terrence just smiled, and closed the space between them, towering over the demon before placing the flat side of the blade on its skin.

The flesh sizzled against the silver, and the creature thrashed against the roots, loosening a growl of pain.

“You must still be lacking a brain,” Terrence whispers, “When I kill you, you will linger for long moments in The Narrow. The bridge of our worlds. Souls, demons, Reapers, they will all be there. And nothing too exciting happens there. Nothing to eat or torment or even feel. The only thing they can do is talk.”

Realization at last flooded its black eyes.

“So you understand, when I say master I only refer to your king. The lord waiting rather impatiently for your success. I wonder just how disappointed Daemizbuhl will be,” Terrence finished.

The threat hung between them. A bluff Terrence was betting everything on.

Everything went still, and Terrence could taste the victory.

“Lets make a deal Reaper, I give you a name and you–”

Its head whipped with flaring nostrils.

Fuck.

“It’s her,” Krys confirmed.

Terrence sank the blade into the creature’s head. It’s stinking blood spraying on his skin.

Silvy’s voice echoes around his domain.

“What the–who are–where the hell am I, and where is my dog?”

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