Carrows killed each other; no one else got the privilege. Certainly not some hag as a detour on its way to a different murder.
What sort of world was that to live in? Or not live in.
Jonah spat out water that tasted like his brother’s death and dragged himself up the stairs. His stomach ached, tight and painful, and his throat felt like sandpaper as he swallowed. He managed to drag himself up onto the landing and crawled out into the lobby.
An older woman with an enraged schnauzer on a lead drew back as she saw him. She nudged the dog behind her with her foot and jabbed the button to call the elevator with an insistent pink-nailed finger.
“Don’t worry,” Jonah said. He pushed himself up the wall onto his feet and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of Luke’s shirt. “I’m just doing some work.”
An eerie metal-on-bone scrape echoed up the stairs and out the door. The schnauzer snapped its mouth shut and tucked its tail. Animals could sense when something bad was on the way. Its owner flinched slightly and tightened her hand around the lead. Then she let her day-to-day brain kick the atavistic response back into the closet.
There were no such things as ghosts, so of course, she’d not heard… that. It had just been—
“I hope you get those pipes fixed tonight,” the woman snipped at him. The doors to the lift rattled open, and she put her hand out to hold them open while she finished. “I don’t want to listen to that all night.”
The lights in the lift flickered and fritzed. The carpet looked… wet, and Jonah’s eyes slid away from the reflection in the mirror as if he’d see something there he didn’t need to know.
Daylight people weren’t the only ones who thrived by lying to themselves.
Jonahalmostlet the snotty woman step across the crack that served as a threshold. It wouldn’t kill her. The hag wasn’t here for her. It wouldn’t be a good ride, though. Or a good night.
The dog made him change his mind as it hunched down to resist being dragged and pinned its ears back. None of this was down to it.
“Actually, I’m working on that,” he said as he leaned back and dragged the door shut behind him. “Bit of flooding in the shaft. It should still be safe to use.”
She blanched and took the stairs.
Good plan. Jonah rubbed the bruise on his chin as he pushed himself off the wall and headed for the doors. Not foolproof, but better than the alternative.
Somethingwhispered from behind him; it was nearly loud enough to hear. If he’d just go over and bend down, put his face to the gap until he felt cold metal against his face. Close enough that it could whisper right in his ear.
“Fuck that,” Jonah said as he used both hands to shove the doors open. “What do you think I am, new?”
The cold air outside was a shock against Jonah’s sweaty skin and tightened his chest. He coughed, spat again, and jogged down the steps to the street. His truck was still where he’d parked it.
“I told you to go,” Jonah said as he pulled the driver's side door open. “Not wait for me. Move.”
Luke swung his leg over the gear stick and squirmed into the passenger seat. One of the duct tape patches gave way with an organic-sounding rip. He stepped on the bag of apples and cursed as he rearranged his feet.
“The truck wouldn’t start,” he snapped. “You know it’s a piece of shit, right?”
“Yeah,” Jonah said. “That’s the point.”
He turned the key, and the engine coughed sullenly at him. “Shit.”
“What happened?” Luke asked. “Did you beat it? Is it gone?”
That was a stupid question. Jonah bit his tongue rather than point that out and tried again. This time the engine caught and rattled painfully under the hood. Jonah paid no attention to that—no reason to encourage it—and pulled away from the curb.
“It’s… slowed down,” Jonah said. “For now. Tell me, how much access does a forensic tech have to police records?”
Gasoline and half-whiskey puke was a stomach-unsettling combination. Jonah kept an eye on the gauge as the tank topped up and stripped off his stained shirt and tank top. The night air made him shiver as he wiped his chest and stomach down with handfuls of rough blue paper from the dispenser.
“You can’t make a hag angry,” Jonah said. “They have to bring that up from the grave with them. So whatever this thing wants, it started with what Deborah did to it. Probably while she was drunk.”
Luke sat in the truck, windows rolled down and his body angled around so he could lean out. His phone was loosely clasped in his hands as he tapped at the screen.
“So, something that happened in Columbus last year?” he said. “Like a hit-and-run or something.”
