Chapter Eight – Ryder

 

“Why two piles?” I asked as I came up to Stephanie, who was busy thumbing through a fat stack of cash on the opposite side of the bar from me. She and I had stacked all the chairs on the tables, along with most of the bar stools, and their legs reached to the heavens like the hands of a wooden church congregation giving thanks.

She sat on one of the few right-side-up bar stools we’d left behind in our cleansing flurry, her full lips quickly moving as she kept track of the count, a stray lock of blonde hair, escaped from her ponytail, falling across her face. Ever-growing brother and sister stacks of bills quickly rose in front of her as she kept up the count. First a dollar on the left, then one on top of the right, like she was the leader of a heist doling out criminal spoils.

She paused from her counting and licked her thumb. “Your cut.”

“My cut?” I asked. “I volunteered.”

She gave me a sideways look as she went back to counting the diminishing wad of cash in her hands. She looked up at me after a second, eyebrow raised. “Mom always said to never trust a man who worked for free. Said they were always going to want you to owe them something, and there was never any telling what that something might be. Or when they’d come to collect.”

I looked up at the ceiling, moving my head from side to side like I was weighing the adage against reality. “Okay, that’s fair. Not that it’s right in my case, or anything, but it’s still not bad.”

“You’re not gonna come collecting for my firstborn or anything, are you?”

I grinned. “Do I look like my name’s Rumpelstiltskin?”

“A little, but I think he’s supposed to be shorter.”

I laughed. “Well, believe me, I’m fine. I was just doing you a favor, that’s all.”

She slapped the last bill down on the left stack, emptying her hands. “But,” she said, patting the bar like it was the top of a familiar dog’s head, “Mom also said to never look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“Guess you can call me Mr. Ed, then,” I replied with a grin.

She threw her head back and laughed. “Come on, don’t you even want to know how much we made, first?”

“Why would I want to know that? Nah, you keep the tip money. Give it to your employees that are sick, or something. It’s your bar—all I did was run empties.”

“And help break up a fight.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fight was practically over by the time I got there, anyways. I just pulled some girl off that guy. Couldn’t even keep her around to find out what had happened.”

She shrugged. “Well, if you weren’t here, I don’t know what I would have done. So you need to take something, at least.”

I leaned forward, my hands on the bar. “Well, you already gave me that scotch on the house at the beginning of the night. I’m just repaying the debt.”

She touched my hand with just the soft tips of her fingers, sending a shiver through me. “Can’t, since that was me paying you back. That was just because you gave me a good laugh.”

“Really? Thought it might be because you thought I was cute.”

She grabbed my hand. “Oh, honey. You’re funny. Looking.”

I frowned even as she squeezed my hand a little, her small fingers closing around my giant ones. My frown softened, though, as she giggled.

“Just kidding, Ryder,” she said, releasing my hand. “Tell you what, how about a beer to absolve me of my debt?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. It was late, and I was exhausted, but a beer sounded like a good way to cap off the night. “Sure.” I turned back and ducked down into the little refrigerator nestled into the bottom of the back bar, since we’d pulled all the beers from the underbar ice chests. I popped the lids off two and handed her one.

“Goddamn,” she said after her first drink, “what a night!”

“We did it, though.” I offered my bottle out to her, and we clinked glass before taking another long drink. It was cold, hoppy, and refreshing on a night like this. “Tomorrow going to be just as bad?”

“No idea,” she said with a smile as she jogged one of the piles of cash into a neat stack. “First year we’ve had the music festival as part of this thing, so I’m still not completely sure how everything will play out. Tonight was definitely busier than any of our weekends in the past, all the days put together, so it seems like it paid off.”

“Been here long?” I asked. “In Camelot, I mean.”

“Oh yeah,” she said, giving me a warm smile. “Ever since I was a little girl, actually. Mom moved us down here from Pittsburgh when she bought this place. Said the city was too rough for a little girl, that the schools out here would be better.”

“Were they?”

She shrugged. “I guess so, if you think smaller means better. But, yeah, growing up in good ol’ Pennsyltucky hasn’t been too bad.”

I laughed. “Pennsyltucky? What the hell’s that?”

“You’re smack dab in the middle of it,” she replied with a grin, after taking a long drink of her beer. “If it ain’t Pittsburgh, and it ain’t Philly, it’s Pennsyltucky.”

We talked a little bit more about what it was like to grow up in a small town out in the country. Even though I’d gravitated towards the wilds of the Pacific Northwest as a youth, I’d lived in Seattle while I was growing up. We’d had the woods, rivers, and mountains just a short trip outside our door, but still got to keep all the benefits of the city.

But, one look at Stephanie Kaufman, and you knew there was something to be said about living the small town life. Something clean and normal. How could there not be, if women like her were growing up here?

“Well,” she said, after draining nearly the last of her beer, “it’s still weird, you know? Growing up here as an outsider.”

I raised an eyebrow as I took another drink.

“My mom moved me down here, you know, when I was just a kid. Ten years old. But, you see, most of the kids who grew up here were from here. Their grandparents had lived here. Hell, even their great-grandparents had.”

I nodded. I knew something about being an outsider. Ever since I’d learned I was a shifter from a young age, I’d been acutely aware of how different I was compared to the other teenage kids. Think puberty is rough? Imagine being able to lose your temper and disembowel someone with your hind claws.

Not that I could say any of that to Stephanie, of course. She’d think I was crazy.

Hell, some days even I thought I was.

“Well,” she said, hopping down from her bar stool and coming around, empty bottle in hand. “Guess that’s it, mister.”

“We all done?” I asked as she wadded up the cash and stuffed it in her back pocket.

“Yep. Hopefully my staff will be better and in tomorrow, but if not, I have a feeling it’ll be a less busy day.” She walked over to the door leading into the back area, and flipped off the lights. The primary ones faded, and the barroom descended into near darkness. Only the emergency exit lights were still going.

“Trying to insinuate you won’t need my help tomorrow?”

She laughed as she navigated her way through the bar like it was as bright as day, flitting between the tables and upside-down chairs. “No, not necessarily.”

“Well, if you need it, I’ll come running,” I replied as I followed in her wake, my low light vision letting me move just as gracefully as she did between the artfully stacked piles of furniture.

“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” she said as she put one hand on the front door.

“Want me to walk you to your car?” I asked as we stepped outside, and she began to fish for her keys. “Lot of cash there.”

Outside, the town had finally begun to quiet. The roving bands of revelers had apparently retreated to their hotel rooms and tents out at the event site, leaving the good people of Camelot able to rest up for the weekend. But still, off in the far distance, I could hear hoots and hollers. Clearly, the concertgoers were capable of keeping the party going. Thankfully, though, it was well outside of town.

“I don’t bring my car to work,” she said as she locked up the front door. “Camelot’s not too big, and I live in town.”

“Walk you home, then?” I asked, a brief memory of the girl with the cat eyes flashing through my mind. I’d already made plans to call Tabitha first thing in the morning about what I’d seen, and about the town, to find out if she had any insights I didn’t. But that was hours away. In the meantime, I couldn’t be sure of what I was dealing with here, or how to fight it.

Because it was definitely something.

I just didn’t have a clue what.

Brow furrowed, she bit her lower lip as if she were uncertain of walking through the night with me at her side. After all, we had just met.

“Know what?” she said with a nod. “Think I’d like that. Might enjoy the company.”

“Good. Gimme two seconds, and I’ll be right back.” I turned and headed back to the Charger.

She gave me a look like I was crazy. “Why?”

“Just need to grab something from my car, that’s all.”

“Like what?” she asked my back.

I stopped. “My sidearm.”

“Your sidearm?” she asked after a moment, her voice incredulous. “Like a concealed carry? A pistol?”

Standing there on the sidewalk, I reached up and scratched the back of my head. “Well, I locked it in the trunk when I went into the bar.”

“We’re in a tiny-ass town in the middle of nowhere, Ryder! Come on!” She cocked out a hip and planted her fist on it.

“I’m licensed, you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t need a baby blanket to go walking around here, even if it is late at night!”

Let me be clear, I didn’t need it as a security blanket. I needed it because throwing silver bullets at the forces of darkness isn’t nearly as effective as actually shooting them. Who knew how many of the whatever-the-hell-these-were were actually running around town? What if we came across some, like that guy who’d gotten laid out on the barroom floor had? Of course, I couldn’t exactly tell her that. Now could I?

But then she actually tapped her foot.

Clearly, it was either go back for my gun and stalk after her through the night to make sure she made it to her destination, or stay unarmed and walk with her like a human. And my decision-making window was about to close.

“Okay, okay. I’ll leave it where it is,” I said as I put my hands up, almost defensively. “Happy?”

She nodded as I walked back over to her. “Yeah. That’s better. Besides, what do you need a gun for, anyways? What do you do? Besides helping out bar owners in distress, I mean?”

I laughed. “Private security, mostly,” I half-lied as we headed off down the street to her place. “A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Mostly corporate stuff, but we do some private work.”

“Like, following people and stuff? Taking pictures?”

“Sometimes.” When it came to cheating wives or corporate espionage, like following certain people where we couldn’t go into a house, I was king. Hunter Jackson, our resident cat burglar and locksmith, might have been able to break into a place and steal anything not nailed down, but I was the man for the job if surveillance required anything vertical or sneaky.

Because who would suspect a great cat perched in a tree outside their house? And my climbing skills didn’t end there, either. Even in my human form, I retained a good portion of my abilities.

“You like it?”

Hands in my pockets, I shrugged. “It’s a living. Travel a lot, but other than that, it’s okay.”

She sighed. “I always wanted to travel.”

“Well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Most of the traveling I’ve done has always been for work. Not much in the way of pleasure cruises, you know?”

“Even traveling for work would be better than what I’ve got,” she said, frowning a little. “I can’t even think of leaving Stan’s for more than a day. Hell, I get nervous enough going up to Pittsburgh, and that’s less than an hour away. I can’t imagine what kind of wreck I’d be if I went to Philadelphia.”

We stopped at the end of the block and turned left, crossed the street. The street lights were few and far between, supplemented mainly by the outdoor lights, which created pools of yellow at the front of residents’ houses. The light hardly reached down here to the sidewalk, though, or down into the narrow streets of Camelot.

“Don’t you have an assistant manager, or anything like that?

“Well, I have a guy, Jeff,” she said as she glanced up at me. “He used to work for my mom when she owned the bar, but he had to call in sick tonight. I can't even imagine what it would have been like if you hadn’t volunteered.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been much worse than we had.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Ryder, I have a weird question.”

“Probably not any weirder than any I've ever heard.”

She didn't say anything for a long moment as we continued to walk down the sidewalk together. “You came into town thinking we were having a big festival because we're the most haunted town in America, right?"

I nodded.

“That mean you believe in ghosts?”

I didn't say anything for what felt like a long time. I mean, how do you tell somebody that you just met, that the reason you're in town is that you're actually coming from an investigation of a supposed poltergeist?

“Well?'' The look on her face said it all. She was clearly upset about something, and it wasn't just that she was nervous about telling me.

“Well,” I said before clearing my throat. “Yeah, I think I do. There's enough in this big world that I know I don't understand, so why should ghosts be any different?”

She turned her eyes away from mine and nodded, her lips pursed together in what seemed to be thoughtful consideration.

We walked down the street in silence for about a hundred more feet, when her footfalls slowed, and she came to a stop.

“Everything okay?'' I asked.

“That's Jeff's house up there,” she replied, nodding to a home just up the way, all the windows blazing with lights.

“Jeff? Your assistant manager? The one who’s sick?”

“Yeah,” she said. “See his lights on?”

Jeff’s house sat farther up the mountain, one of those types of buildings where the basement was the ground floor you entered into. It was like a beacon on the almost pitch-black Camelot street. A form moved across one of the front downstairs windows as we gazed up at it.

“Well,” I said, “looks like he’s still up.”

“I wish he would have just gotten some sleep. He sounded awful on the phone.” She reached back behind her and patted her back pocket, the one where she’d stuffed the tip money from the night. “You know what, if he's already awake, I might as well just drop this off now.”

“Sure you really want to keep him awake?”

But it was too late; she was already trekking across the yard up to the front door, and I was following hot on her heels. “You don’t know Jeff the way I do,” she said, without glancing back. “Bartenders are practically night owls by nature—he’ll probably be up for hours. It’s how we’re wired.”

“If you say so,” I replied, as I joined her at the front door, and she rapped out a series of knocks on the heavy wooden door.

“Jeff?” she called. She knocked again.

“Maybe he actually is asleep?”

She made a face. “That doesn’t make any sense. If he’s asleep, who did we see in the window?”

I frowned as I looked out to the street, just checking our backs out of habit. Nothing stirred out there, and the whole town seemed to just hold its breath. Like it had been holding its breath since before the festival had started, and it was going to let it all out in one giant whoosh of relief come Monday.

“Jeff, come on, it’s just Stephanie,” she called again, this time more loudly. “I saw you in there! Open up!”

Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor on the other side of the door. I turned to Stephanie. “Maybe he is home?”

“Stephanie? That you?”

“Come on, Jeff, open up.”

“Oh, I don't know about that.”

“Still feeling under the weather?”

“You could say that.” His voice was nasal, and it sounded like he’d packed his sinuses with cotton gauze.

“Well, it can't be that bad.”

He sighed. “Okay, give me a second.”

We both exchanged a look as Jeff began to fiddle with the lock. “Is he okay?”

She shrugged. “I don't know,” she whispered. “He did sound pretty sick on the phone, though.”

Finally, Jeff had the door unlocked and pulled it open just a crack. “What's up, champ?” he asked, his late-fifties face filling the space between the door and the frame. Deep laugh and smile lines cleaved into his skin around his mouth and eyes.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t smiling or laughing tonight. From what little I could see, Jeff looked like death warmed over. His leathery skin was pallid, and even the whites of his eyes had begun to yellow. It looked like a steady stream of phlegm and God knows what else had been running from his nose all night.

“Just wanted to bring by your half of the tip money,” Stephanie replied, an almost obvious wince on her face.

“Tip money?” His eyes shifted from Stephanie to me and back again. “You really didn't need to do that.”

“Well, I didn't want you to miss out.” She glanced to me. “Jeff, this is Ryder. Ryder, meet Jeff. Ryder volunteered to help out tonight.”

We exchanged nods. “Sorry you feel like shit, man.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Stephanie had already pulled the wad of tip money out of her back pocket and thumbed off a little over half the bills. “Here,” she said, offering it to him. “Your part. A little over five hundred.”

Jeff whistled low, but his whistle soon turned into a hacking cough. He looked like he was about to bring up his right arm to cover his mouth, but seemed to quickly think better of it, and kept it hidden behind the door.

“Geez, sorry guys,” he said after a long, frustrated groan. “This is a lot worse than I thought.”

“Don't worry, just take the rest of the weekend off to get better.”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “I'll try. Thanks again, champ. You shouldn’t have come by, but I’m glad you did.”

Stephanie offered him his part of the tips, her hand outstretched to him. He pulled the door further open and reached for it with his left hand, as I glanced down at his right, the one he had been carefully concealing behind the door while coughing.

What I saw there made the cat eyes I'd seen earlier on the patrons seem like nothing more than just a stray black cat running across your path.

“What the…?”

His hand. Something was wrong with his hand. It's not that it wasn't there, like he’d lost it in some kind of accident. I was no stranger to that kind of thing, especially after my time serving in Afghanistan. Prosthetics were nothing new to me.

No, instead, his hand seemed to be both there, and not there. Like he was steadily becoming invisible. Like in one of those old films where someone was erased from history, and their likeness just slowly disappeared from pictures, symbolizing that their memory was no more, and their effects on the fictional timeline would soon be forgotten. The tips of his fingers shimmered for a moment, all the color washing out, and I caught glimpses of the old hardwood floors through the outline of his formerly solid extremities.

“Jeff?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “You got something you wanna tell us?”

Jeff was slowly fading away in front of our very eyes.