Sublime Messages

Five, B

Van. Why had he called her that? Out of all the weird things that'd occurred during their encounter, Arlo's nickname for her had struck her as most odd.

"Are you listening to me, Vanessa? Did you hear what I said?"

"No, I—I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"A tongue! They cut out some poor kid's tongue, the damned monsters! It came in an envelope out a window, same as the other. Another verse, another frustrating note."

Vanessa felt ill, rubbed the bridge of her nose. "What's it say?"

"It says 'They sharpen their tongues as a serpent; Poison of a viper is under their lips.'" Eli sighed, and Vanessa was sure he was struggling to speak, to tell her of these people's barbarism. "Then it just says to continue to wait, that they'll kill the kids if we try anything, that there are enough of them to do a lot of damage. Then to listen to him, his messages are sublime, that sort of crap. We've got people working on the verses, counting letters, looking for a code or symbols, that sort of thing, but no one has a clue. Dammit, Vanessa, you find out anything worth knowing, yet? What can this man possibly want?"

She shook her head, then remembered she was on a phone and Eli couldn't see her. "You've brought in negotiators, I assume?"

"Of course, but they can't do any negotiating if these people aren't even willing to talk to us."

"Communications?"

"Well, it's all up to them. Wi-Fi's been restored; parents have been able to track their kids' phones, but everything's dead silent on the other end. No one wants to talk. Or no one's allowed to talk."

"And you're sure no one's been killed yet? I mean, maimed, ok . . . but not killed?"

"We aren't sure of anything. So please, keep at it. There's got to be something out there that will give us a clue. I can send someone else, if you need—"

"No. I work best alone, Eli."

"I know. I thought you'd say that. Tell me you have a lead, though. Give me anything I can pass on."

Vanessa had little with which to ease his concerns, but she tried. "I have a starting point today. You could call it a lead, sort of. I'm on it, all right? I'll make sense of this."

When she hung up, the woman felt as if she'd lied. What did she have? A few weirdos and odd conversations. She was sure these people knew things, and yet she couldn't pass that on without being sure of what they knew. It was so frustrating.

What in the world could this Damien be playing at? What was with the Biblical stuff? The body parts? Was his torment of these kids purely for sick enjoyment, or was it a threat, to show his capabilities? To keep them on their toes, keep them guessing? What larger purpose could he have? If she could understand Damien's background, she'd have a better chance at answering these questions. From what little she knew of him (via files Eli had shared that morning), Damien's paternity was undocumented, but whoever had fathered him had likely been from the reservation down south. His mother had raised him without any help, put him in school until he'd reached sixteen, at which point his parent had allowed him to drop out. The boy's mother was recorded to have died later that year in a traffic accident, at which point Damien reportedly lived on his own, working odd jobs around the town of Lone Rock. Where exactly he'd resided had somehow remained a mystery, but there were accounts of him tangling a bit with law enforcement for petty issues, and their documentation showed he always listed his and his mother's previous address, even though her house had been razed shortly after her death. Damien's avoidance of the foster system, his ability to remain ahead of the police, to get away with lying to them, was nothing short of negligence on the part of law enforcement and family services. There was no reason that young man should've been able to fall through the cracks in the system.