The Crescent

Chapter 26

Death and darkness aren't inseparable, but too often they are coupled because darkness offers to soften the terrible, a gauze to a wound, the star-speckled film of an egg over a lightbulb. But come the break of dawn, find the mess of death spread across the floor in unapologetic red. Zacari stashed the camera beneath her bed and she was alone with her thought to wonder if she could see the red come nightfall.

Baker and Will. Both made good points. Baker had made mistakes, but he'd never been malicious to Zacari. And Will had, and she didn't know who he'd been in life to examine his spiritual character. Bottom line, the visions of Gloria contradicted each other. Javier was right, someone was lying.

And when she descended the back stairs towards the morgue, it was Gloria she thought of. If only she could speak to her and set the story straight. Lela snuggled in Zacari's freshly washed hoodie as Zacari padded down the foyer in socks. Two stories up her father snored, his own covers beneath him and Zacari's covers on top of him. I'll be back before he knows it, she thought, tapping her fingers against the camera.

Faint footsteps stopped her in her tracks. Lela growled uncertainly.

"Zacari!"

She whirled around. Javier strode towards her in a quietly clumsy gait. Lela dropped the ferocities and wagged her tail.

"What are you doing here?" Zacari accused. Javier was taken aback and Zacari immediately felt guilty. "I'm sorry. You just scared me."

"No, it's okay. I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."

"How'd you know I was here?"

"Just kind of guessed," he shrugged. "You saw him here once, I figured you might see him again here. Plus, midnight is always the perfect time for scary stuff." Zacari didn't like to think of herself as predictable, but she grudgingly admired his detective skills. "And...you might be a little in over your head."

And he was right. "I'm not in over my head," she snubbed. "But you're welcome to tag along." She held out her hand and Javier gladly took it.

The door to the morgue creaked open, just as it did when Zacari first met Baker here. Javier clenched her hand and Lela growled, a tremoring, pitchless piano key.

"It's okay," Zacari said. All observation, Javier nodded mutely. They took steadying steps down to the door, and Zacari opened the door just wide enough for them to slip into the darkness shoulder to shoulder.

Lela became a shuddering, thing in Zacari's pocket. Her heartbeat thwacked against her ribs like a pendulous mallet. She peered through the camera, and there was Baker. She lowered it and in the darkness he took form, waning and waxing in watercolors, until they layered and he was as tangible as the concrete beneath his feet. His eyes bored into Zacari, his mouth flat-lined in a scowl and a deep dimple on his right cheek. Zacari's frown dimple. She glanced over at Javier, who'd blanched.

A few stretched seconds smelling smoke of smoke and rot passed before Baker gave a scarcely perceptible nod in Javier's direction, and Javier's hand ripped from Zacari's as he went hurtling outside of the morgue, slamming onto the steps and crumpling onto the floor. Zacari shrieked but the morgue door slammed shut and locked.

"Javier!" she hollered and tugged at the door handle, knowing full well as frost laced across the door it wouldn't budge. Lela thrashed in her pocket, yipping angrily until she finally thrust her head out of Zacari's hoodie to properly snarl at Baker.

"Zacari," Baker said quietly. Full of malice.

The hairs on the back of Zacari's neck prickled as she turned to face him, her hands reaching instinctively for Lela.

"Why did you bring that boy?"

"I didn't – he was just – why would you do that?" she stammered.

"To keep you safe."

"Safe? He could be hurt, open the door!"

"He'll be perfectly fine," he said in a way that Zacari was suddenly not so sure Javier would be perfectly fine. "Now, let's continue with our exploration of my character, shall we?"

Zacari laughed before she could stop herself.

"Does something amuse you, my dear?" Lela yapped threateningly at him. "Oh, why must you insist on bringing that rat? I had dogs once. Bastille and Burdock. Beautiful things, sleek and large Dobermans. They were always at my side, very protective, however, unlike your...dog, if you can even call it that...they had more bite to them."

Zacari clutched Lela protectively to her chest, everything Will and Javier had said about Baker ringing in her ears, her mind racing a million miles an hour with the realization Baker could and would hurt people intentionally, he just did, poor Javier, and would hurt her next, and would that matter if he knew she was his great granddaughter, or did he know anyway, but all that came out was:

"Did you murder Will Drachman?"

Baker's eyes flashed. "The nosy journalist? No. If I recall correctly, he went missing before he arrived."

"So this is your camera? Not Will Drachman's?"

"Of course it's my camera," he snapped. "Any more irrelevant questions?"

"Do you know why you're able to communicate with me?" she ventured.

Baker studied her, his colorless eyes perceptive, watching. "I told you, Zacari," he enunced every word so that they sliced through the air in bloody arcs. "You are brave and curious. We are a team, and I belive in you."

You can brace for belief, but it is so desirable, so coveted that the notion was nearly impossible to shake. Sure, Zacari's mother believed in her, and maybe a few teachers at school. But when had her father said that? Never.

But it only counted if it was authentic.

So, say it.

"Baker," she gulped, "I'm your great granddaughter."

She watched. A plain apathy smoothed over Baker's face and Zacari was afraid for a moment that he'd fling her around the room like he had Javier. But then his face cracked like a thick-shelled egg into a long-toothed smile and he laughed, a sound long and high like a dangerously close train whistle, an unnatural joy that only disturbed Zacari deeper into silence.

"Impossible," he said as a stream of laughter sputtered to an end.

Zacari cleared her throat, squeezed Lela for reassurance. "You got your receptionist, Theodora Rosewood, pregnant, but you never spoke to her again. Well, the baby she had is my grandpa. And then he had my mom, and then she and my dad had me."

Baker's eyes flared. "You. My great granddaughter?"

"That would explain the connection. Like maybe I was meant to find the camera, you know?"

"My great granddaughter," he said again, examining her in a different light. Zacari cringed as she felt the all too real analysis taking place, and it felt anything but loving.

"Yes. Crazy, right?" she said, laughing awkwardly. Lela nipped her hand. "Ouch!"

He said nothing for a long, long time.

"You resemble your father," he said, Zacari's scowl on his face.

An invisible force threw her across the room and Zacari felt her head snap against the door, and everything went black.