Zahira took the lead, since technically it was her case. “Special Agent Zahira Noorzai, SPECTR. What’s your name, sir?”
“I-I already told the cops,” he said in an uncertain voice. “Do I have to go through it all again?”
Poor bastard. The cop could have at least told them what he knew before he left in a snit.
“It will help with the investigation to hear it directly from you,” Zahira said gently. “Mr…?”
“Vernon LeBlanc.”
“Thank you, Mr. LeBlanc. Can you tell us what happened?”
He swallowed. “Dan—that’s Dan Landry. We work together. Worked together.” A stricken look crossed his face. “Construction. Last night was our holiday party, down in LaPlace. We both live in Ponchatoula, and I was pretty shit-faced, so he agreed to drive me home. I figured I could have Mandy drive me back down to get my car today.”
The woman beside him nodded. “Amanda LeBlanc,” she said. “I’m Vernon’s wife.”
“Why did you take this route, instead of the interstate?” Zahira asked Vernon.
He didn’t look happy at the question. Instead of making him think up some excuse, Caleb said, “Dan had been drinking some too?”
“A little,” Vernon said. “Just a couple of beers.”
Caleb doubted it had been just a couple. But either Vernon hadn’t quite made the connection that Dan was far past getting in trouble for driving drunk, or he didn’t want to speak ill of the dead.
“So you were driving north along the highway,” Zahira prompted.
Vernon licked his lips. “Yeah. I wasn’t feeling too good. Then all the sudden Dan slows down. There was this…strange light, off the road. Sort of a blue glow. The way it moved…” He trailed off, then shut his eyes, as if to block out the sight. “I don’t really know what happened next. This weird feeling came over me, like I was certain the light wanted me to follow it. They say there’s pirate treasure buried deep in the swamps, and I had the crazy idea that the light was going to show me where some was hidden. It’s Christmas, and money’s tight, and I remember thinking I sure could use a haul of buried treasure right now.”
A psychic lure. Some NHEs used them to draw in their prey, and it sounded like Vernon and Dan had wandered right into its trap.
“I would’ve thought I was just drunk,” Vernon said, “But Dan parked the car and got out. Headed right for the light, like maybe it had given him the same promise. I started to follow him, but all the booze caught up with me.” He glanced down, shame-faced. “I kinda passed out beside the car. Woke up to find the sun rising and no sign of Dan. I went to look for him, and I found…”
Vernon gagged and clamped a hand over his mouth. Mandy rubbed his shoulders. “It’s okay, baby. Just put your head down and take deep breaths.”
“I’ll take a look,” Caleb volunteered. He didn’t really want to slog around in the swamp, but the body couldn’t be too far away. And with any luck, Gray would catch the NHE’s scent and they could follow it back to its lair.
Zahira nodded, and he made for the line of bent marsh grass that betrayed where Landry had gone into the swamp.
It didn’t take long to find the body—or, rather, what little remained of it. Most of the corpse dangled from the lower limbs of a cypress. The victim looked shocked, jaw hanging open. His right arm was bloody near the shoulder, the shirt torn into two pieces.
Horrifyingly, the victim’s leg bones seemed to be missing, with only flayed muscle dangling down like a pair of empty socks.
“Christ, that’s gross,” Caleb muttered.
“The demon took its time,” Night said from his elbow.
Caleb jumped and yelped. “Don’t do that to me! And didn’t I tell you to stay in the car?”
Night ignored him.
Well, he was here now, so he might as well make himself useful. “Any idea what the fuck did this?” Caleb asked. “Either of you?”
The reek of blood and organs drowned out the swampy smell of decaying vegetation. But there was another scent as well, blending in with that of the muck. A thick stench of rotting eggs and freezing metal, rusting iron and earth writhing with maggots.
Their mouth flooded with saliva as Gray’s hunger awoke. “Yes. I do not know what these mortals call it, but I hunted one here long ago. I lost three bodies to the swamp doing so, and it bit me, but I ate it at last.”
There’s not three of me to go around, so let’s be careful, okay?
“We can heal.”
I’d prefer not to have to.
“Gray’s seen this demon before,” Caleb told Night. “It sounds like the hardest part was the terrain.”
“I do not recognize the scent,” Night reported. “But I have it now.”
He started off, and Caleb followed. The NHE’s trail cut north—then, to his surprise, crossed the road a few hundred yards away from the parked car. Vernon was lucky it hadn’t been interested in him. The thing probably fed on fear, so killing an unconscious man wouldn’t have done anything for it.
God, he hoped poor Dan had been dead before it started in on his legs.
The trail ended at the edge of a wide canal running along the interstate. Trucks and cars rumbled past overhead, their drivers unaware that something terrible had passed beneath them only hours before. On the other side of the canal, Caleb glimpsed cypress trees and the glint of water.
“Damn it,” Caleb muttered. Gray growled his frustration. “We’re going to need a boat or something. Otherwise, we’ll end up just thrashing around in the mud.”
“But we will lose the scent if we leave now,” Night objected.
“We’re going to lose it anyway—no way can we follow it fast enough through that terrain. The scent will fade by this afternoon, and all we’ll have to show for it will be water-logged clothes.” He started back toward the highway. “Don’t worry—we’ll be back for this fucker soon.”
“I’ve got it,” John said.
In truth, it hadn’t taken much effort to identify the NHE from the swamp, just going by Vernon’s description. A few parameters in the SPECTR database, and there it was. “It looks like we’re dealing with a fifolet. They’re similar to will-o-the-wisps—they use bioluminescence combined with a psychic lure to draw in their prey. Once the prey is in range, they deliver a paralyzing venom through snake-like fangs.”
Caleb emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed but still combing hair damp from his shower. “That jibes with what Gray remembers from encountering one. It bit him, but dead body equals no heartbeat to pump it around, so nothing happened.”
“Are there any more details, John?” Zahira asked. She sat at the table, finishing off the Chinese take-out they’d picked up on the way back. “Anything that might help us catch it?”
John focused on his laptop. He was guiltily glad to have something to work on other than his own problems for a bit. “According to legend, the pirate Jean Lafitte buried his treasure in places along the Gulf Coast, including New Orleans. Once the treasure was hidden, he’d summon a fifolet into one of his men and abandon him there to guard the treasure.”