We started near Vivian and Valerie's apartment on the far north side, working our way south toward downtown. The first was a semi-dive called Angelo's decorated in an aquatic motif, with a swordfish mounted to the wall behind the bar and plastic sharks dangling from the ceiling. Rachel wore a tight white blouse and a snug black skirt short enough to show off her legs and catch everyone’s attention. “You owe me for this,” she muttered as two men checked her out from down the bar.
The bartender recognized Vivian’s picture on my phone but said he hadn’t seen her in days. Neither had the two guys at the bar. Rachel meandered the small Thursday night crowd—mostly young, not too drunk yet—and came up empty. I paid for our drinks and left my card, and we walked to the next bar.
An hour later we were on the near north side, where hot, happening nightclubs were scattered like glitter in the night. We stood in a short line with a crowd of brightly dressed 20-somethings, half-drunk or high or both, laughing and singing and checking their phones impatiently.
The bouncer on the front steps looked Rachel up and down, then peered at me and shook his head with a sigh. “Okay.” He waved us in.
Hip-hop music blared from every mirrored wall as people danced beneath gleaming lights. A DJ on a raised platform in the corner gazed out over the crowd like a horny deity waiting for his next virgin or not-so-virgin sacrifice.
A young Black man in a tank top jostled me as I headed for the bar. He apologized, checked out Rachel, and smiled. “Hi there. Wanna dance?”
“Maybe later.” She took my hand and whispered in my ear. “I’ll mingle. Fifteen minutes?”
“Good luck. Be careful who you dance with.” I watched her walk away. I knew Rachel could take care of herself, but even after living together for several years, I was just insecure enough to worry about all the handsome, muscular young men watching her walk into the throng of dancers.
The bartender, a six-foot-tall Asian woman with spiky black hair, thought she recognized Vivian—tonight. “Yeah, she was here for a while.” She had to almost shout over the hip-hop. “Seemed a little out of it. Looked like she slept in her clothes. Got some guy to buy her a drink. Is she in trouble?”
“Her sister is looking for her. What guy?”
She closed her eyes a moment. “Leather jacket. Skinny necktie. Snake tattoo on his neck.” She shrugged. “He seemed nice.”
“Thanks.” I paid for a beer and carried it with me as I questioned other people, not drinking any. I was on medication for night terrors after my serial killer case, and even if I wasn’t, downing alcohol all night would make for bad detective work and a wicked hangover in the morning.
I focused on staff—other bartenders, serving staff, roving bouncers. One server remembered Vivian too, talking to the guy with the snake tattoo. They’d left together maybe 45 minutes ago.
Rachel found me a few minutes later, holding a drink someone had bought her. “I got hit on by three guys and two women,” she shouted over the music, setting the drink on a nearby table. “This is fun!”
I took her hand. “Let’s go.”
“Party pooper.” She stuck her tongue out.
Outside, the music still pounding in our ears, I told her about the bartender and the bouncer. Rachel hadn’t found anyone who’d seen Vivian.
Our next stop was only a few blocks away, in the Old Town neighborhood. Rachel called Georgeanne while we walked.
“There’s just lots and lots of evil shit in here,” Georgeanne said. “I can’t tell if there’s any one page they looked at. I’m about a quarter through. Here’s one bad boy who splits himself up so he can infect other humans. And there’s one who makes people commit public suicide and then jumps into the nearest witness. I’m opening more wine.”
The next place we stopped at was smaller and quiet. Instead of a dance floor, it had pool tables. The music was techno. The bartender, a young Latinx man with a thin beard, told us he’d seen Vivian playing pool with a group of men in the corner.
I sent Rachel over to talk to them. Her glare told me I’d pay for it later. Possibly for the rest of my life.
I nursed a beer and watched. The three men at the table welcomed her. One of them offered her a cue to join their game.
She sank a few balls, and the men applauded and patted her shoulder. She laughed. Then she pulled her phone out and showed them Vivian’s picture. I saw them nodding, pointing, talking to each other and her. Then Rachel sank one more ball and, to my relief, came back to me.
“They were actually pretty nice.” She sat next to me. “Didn’t even hit on me.”
“What about Vivian?” I forced my brain back to the case.
“She left about half an hour ago with one of their friends. Larry. Larry Lanigan.” She scrolled through her phone. “He owns a furniture store. They said it’s right near here—okay, here it is.” She pushed the phone at me.
LANIGAN’S FURNITURE. I saw a long leather couch, an easy chair, and a couple of end tables in front of a window looking out onto the street. The address was off North Avenue, just a few blocks away.
“Good work, Nancy Drew.” I moved to kiss her cheek—hoping the pool players were watching—but she pushed me away.
“There’s more. She said something about wanting to meet up with a friend. She called him Balmon. They thought it was a funny name.” Rachel tapped a number on her phone. Georgeanne. “Hi, it’s me. Can you look up a name in that book? Is there—okay, okay, there’s no index, I get it.” She rolled her eyes. “Balmon. Something like that. Okay, call me back.”
We left, heading for Lanigan’s store. Would she really take him there? I didn’t know, but it was too close not to check out.
Night had settled in. The streets and sidewalks were busy outside the bars, but when we turned to the next street the atmosphere got quieter, with few people and cars buzzing by. I spotted Lanigan’s at the end of the block.
Rachel’s phone buzzed. Georgeanne. “Yeah, I found him. It. Whatever.” She was out of breath, as if she’d been running for blocks. “I read about him already, it’s the one that infects other humans. Balmonicus. Says something like, ’This unholy beast will consume one soul to become two, then two to become four,’ yada, yada, yada. That sound like your guy?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” This was getting more and more complicated. “Is there anything in the book about how to get rid of it?”
“There’s something . . . It’s going to take me a while to figure this out.”
“Okay,” Rachel said. “We might be close to her now.”
“Wish I was there with my gun. This guy sounds nasty.”
Georgeanne had weapons—and she was good with them. But I didn’t want anyone killed—particularly Vivian. “We’ll be okay. Keep checking the book.”
We reached the storefront on the corner. Through the front window we could see sofas, chairs, tables, bookcases, and other furniture-related accessories. The front of the store was dark and murky, but lights glowed in the back.
Leaning forward, I shaded my eyes and peered into the store, but all I could see was shadows drifting in and out of the light.
Rachel pressed her ear to the glass. I waited, but she shook her head, exasperated. “What do we do now? Break a window?”
“That would probably set off an alarm.” I didn’t want the police here. Yet. Instead I knocked on the glass. Then I knocked again, harder.
Something in the back moved forward. Rachel took a step back. I waved, then backed away myself. The shape—tall, two arms and legs, probably male—started running, dodging between chairs. He jumped over a table. He tripped, rolled over, and sprang up, looking behind him, then took off again like a rabbit desperately trying to escape a bloodhound.
He finally reached the front of the store. I could see his face—red, twisted with fear, sweat dripping down his forehead. His arms pumped furiously as he ran and jumped on a long table next to a sofa.
Head down, he launched himself at the front window.
I ducked as the glass erupted. The guy tumbled on the sidewalk next to me, groaning, holding his head as blood dripped from his scalp. I reached for him
And then more glass shattered, showering shards over my head. A man leaped through the opening, hitting the sidewalk on his shoulder, and then reared up, snarling. He looked at me, then down at the man who’d smashed through the window. Then he turned and ran, racing down the street like a rabid dog in search of someone to bite.
More people jumped from the store—six or seven, at least. They seemed disoriented, confused, and then they scattered, each dashing in a different direction. One of them screamed something. A woman clawed at my arm before pushing me aside and running across the street..
Rachel was on her knees, her arms shielding her face and eyes. I reached down to pull her to her feet. She stood, tottering, and pulled her arm away. Then she pointed. “Tom!”
Vivian Carroll stood on the sidewalk, arms at her sides, breathing hard. She wore jeans and dirty sneakers, her blond hair a tornado. Her eyes burned like fire.
I lifted a hand. “Vivian? My name’s Tom. Your sister Valerie sent me to find you.”
She blinked, as if she couldn’t hear me. She looked down at the man bleeding on the sidewalk, her lip curling in disgust.
Then she swung a fist at me.
I ducked and jumped back, my arms raised. I looked for Rachel, hoping she’d come to my rescue before I had to hit a woman.
Vivian snarled at me. I tensed.
Instead of attacking me, though, she spun around and ran away like a cheetah seeking new prey.
I chased her for half a block, but a car turning a corner cut me off, and I had to watch her disappear into the night. I didn’t know what I’d do if I caught her anyway. Tackle her to the street and try an emergency exorcism right there?
When I got back to the store, Rachel was crouching beside the guy who’d jumped through the window. “It’s Lanigan,” she said. “I called an ambulance.”
Lanigan was rocking back and forth on the sidewalk, hugging his knees in a fetal position and moaning.
I knelt. “Hi. Can I ask you some questions? I’m Tom Jurgen. That’s Rachel. I’m a private detective.”
Lanigan clutched his head. Rachel slugged me. “He’s kind of in pain right now.”
“We won’t have a chance to talk to him once he goes to the ER. Larry? Can you tell ius what happened?” I leaned forward. “Vivian picked you up at a bar—”
“Bitch.” He spat the word, and some blood. “We were going to—she wanted to see my store. Like she wanted to do it here, We came here, and suddenly she let all these people in, and then they were—shouting at me.” He gasped for breath. “Then there was—something, something pounding on my head. In my head. I just—they were pulling at me, grabbing at me, and I ran, and I didn’t know where I was going, I just had to get away.” He shook his head. “I guess I crashed through the window.”
He rubbed his skull, then stared at the blood on his hands. “What the hell happened?”
Sirens rang down the street. I stood up.
“What now, kemo sabe?” Rachel asked.
“We’ll get him in the ambulance. Then—I guess we’ll keep tracking her.” If Georgeanne was right, Balmon was trying to possess more humans. We’d interrupted it mid-possession with Lanigan, but Vivian would try again with someone else. It sounded like Balmon already had the start of a posse.
Rachel shuddered. “I got some seriously bad vibes from her. Or it.”
“You can go home if you want. Help Georgeanne.”
She hesitated. Then gave a small nod. “Maybe I can find something in the book. You be careful. Don’t screw up Georgeanne’s last night with us by getting killed.”
“That’s all I will think about, Georgeanne’s perfect evening.”
“Jerk.” She kissed me. “Call me every 15 minutes.”
I held up my phone. “Got it.”
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