Dan Gabler worked at a sporting goods store in Evanston. A co-worker in a T-shirt with the store’s logo pointed me toward his section, which included tents and camping gear, but I saw archery equipment on the wall beyond. Gabler, 30ish with a mustache, greeted me with a too-friendly smile in front of a family-size tent with a gas grill in front of it. “Hi! How can I help you?”
I showed him my card. “You’re a friend of Greg Fowler, right?”
He blinked, surprised. “Yeah, right. College friends. What’s going on?”
“Have you heard from him in the last few days?”
Now he grew guarded. “What’s going on?” he asked again.
“He’s missing. His wife is worried. Have you talked to him or heard from him?”
“No. Not for months.” He shook his head. “What’s going . . .” He let his voice trail off before repeating the question a third time.
“A few weeks ago you asked a woman named Irina for information about a demon named Abilosh. Can I ask why?”
Gabler’s eyes flickered. He suddenly looked over my shoulder, then around his, making sure no one was close enough to overhear. But customers were sparse in the middle of the day. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really?”
A long moment passed. Gabler looked uncomfortable. Finally he sighed. “Uh, come here.”
He unzipped the tent. It was roomy enough to sleep a family of four, according to the sign outside listing its features and price, and once we were inside it was big enough for us both to stand upright, even though Gabler was taller than me.
“Okay.” Gabler zipped the tent back up. “Uh, about two weeks ago this guy comes into the store asking about archery stuff. He wants to hunt deer in Wisconsin. I tell him the season’s not until the fall, but he doesn’t care, he says his boss told him to get this stuff.”
“His boss.”
“Yeah. Except it sounded like he said something else, like ‘Abilosh,’ and I said what? And he said, ‘No, boss, my boss’ and then he got nervous and shut up. But I was pretty sure I heard him right.” Gabler nodded at me. “I thought it was a little weird, but you get every kind of people here, you know? The survivalists are the worst. Anyway . . .” He paused.
“He buys the stuff, and I’m ringing him up and he takes out his and calls someone. ‘I got everything,’ he says, and he’s talking about all the stuff, and when he hangs up I say, ‘Calling the boss, huh?’ And he looks confused, and then says, “yeah, yeah,’ like he forgot he said ‘boss.’” He shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s it.”
I’m pretty good at spotting when people are lying. He sounded a little as if he was making up the story on the spot. “What made you call Irina?”
He sighed. “It sounded like something from D&D. Dungeons and Dragons? I play with her sometimes. And Irina knows about this stuff, all right? She believes in magic and stuff. So I called her, and she looked it up in her books and told me some stuff, and then I forgot about it. Until—you know.”
“The Archer murders.”
He nodded. “I wanted to call the police, but my boss wouldn’t let me. If it was him, and he bought the stuff from our store, it looks bad, you know? That’s what he said, anyway.”
“Is there security footage?”
“It was weeks ago. It gets erased every 10 days.”
“What was his name? What did he look like?”
“He was tall, kind of skinny.” Gabler rubbed his chin. “A beard. He was wearing sunglasses. His name was, uh, let me think . . .” He closed his eyes. “Burnham. Something Burnham.”
“And you haven’t heard from Greg Fowler at all?”
“What does he have to do with this? No, like I said. Not since before Christmas.”
I nodded, looking him over. I wished Rachel was with me.
“Burnham” I thought for a moment. “Could it have been . . . Dean Burnham?”
“Dean! Yeah, that’s right.” Gabler nodded vigorously. “His first name was Dean.”
I’d picked the name at random. It wasn’t as good as having Rachel, but it worked sometimes.
“Thanks.” I unzipped the tent opening.
A woman with her baby in a stroller gave us a suspicious look as we got out of the tent. “Well, I’ll have to think about it, but thanks for showing me the inside!” I said loudly. Gabler just stared at me, and I left.
Out in the parking lot I sat in my car and called Lynda Fowler again. “I just talked to Gabler, and he says he hasn’t talked to your husband since before Christmas. He told me a story about a guy in his store a few weeks ago buying hunting gear. Bow hunting.”
“Ohh . . .” I heard her swallow. “What does this have to do with Greg? And this Abilosh guy?”
“I don’t know yet.” Yet. That was me being optimistic. “I’ll be in touch.”
Now what? I sat in the car, thinking. Just as I was on the verge of sketching the outline of an idea, my phone buzzed. Lynda Fowler.
“You said—you said Danny hasn’t talked to Greg since Christmas?” She sounded puzzled.
“That’s what he told me.”
“That’s wrong. I’m sure Greg heard from him a couple of weeks ago. Maybe two weeks?”
Two weeks. The same time frame that “Burnham” had purchased his archery supplies from Gabler. His story had fallen apart in 10 minutes. Maybe instead of going home for lunch I should go back inside and—
Before I could complete my thought, the door of the sporting goods store flew open and Danny Gabler trotted across the sidewalk into the parking lot. A moment later he was in a red Nissan, backing up.
“Gotta go,” I told Lynda quickly. “I’ll be in touch.”
“What—” But I had to hang up.
Gabler made a right turn out of the parking lot. I followed. He headed south on Ridge and headed into Chicago, into a middle-class residential neighborhood pretty much like the one where the Fowlers lived, and just a few miles away.
I parked half a block down the street and used my phone to look up the address. The house was owned by Cory Enterprises, which turned out to be a small packing and shipping store based in Evanston, owned by Andrew Cory.
In a few minutes I found out that Andrew Cory had served in the Army, been honorably discharged, then run a string of small unsuccessful businesses over the years. He didn’t have any social media that I could find, and not much of an internet footprint.
Was he the Archer? I didn’t have any real evidence to believe it. It was suspicious that Gabler would run immediately to him after I asked him about Abilosh. But I didn’t have enough to take to the police. Even the cops who knew me and tolerated my stories about supernatural beings committing unspeakable crimes would be skeptical if my only evidence was a vague connection to an ancient European demon.
I texted Rachel to let her know where I was, and then waited. I was hungry, and I found a half-empty box of stale granola bars in the back seat. They tasted like sawdust, but they were better than nothing.
After 20 minutes Gabler left. I stayed, watching the house, hoping for a look at Andrew Cory. I drank a little water, not wanting to need a bathroom break soon, and kept the radio on at a low volume to help me stay alert.
After an hour and five minutes a Subaru van pulled out of the driveway. I couldn’t get a good look at the driver, but I started up and followed.
The driver wasn’t alone. Another person sat in the passenger seat. Male or female, I couldn’t tell. I tailed the van for several miles, back up to Evanston, until it stopped in front of a self-storage building on Dempster Road. The passenger door opened.
Greg Fowler got out.
I still couldn’t get a good look at the driver. I noted the address and the time, and waited.
Fowler came back outside 15 minutes later, carrying a long nylon bag slung over one shoulder. He slid it into the back seat, climbed back in, and buckled his belt as the van went off again.
Again I followed. Whoever was driving didn’t spot me as we swung south and made our way back to Chicago. By now the afternoon shadows were getting long as the sun sank down in the west. The Subaru drove around for an hour and a half, wandering through the neighborhoods, pausing sometimes in front of a park or playground, as if the driver was looking for someplace he hadn’t found yet.
Finally he stopped in front of a small park across the street from a high school. Teenagers lingered in the parking lot, but the street was sleepy and quiet. The passenger door opened and Fowler slipped out.
The car kept going down the street. Fowler walked over to the park’s gate.
I left my car next to a fire hydrant, expecting a ticket that I hoped my client would pay for, and made my way after him. He was passing a bench when I called, “Greg!”
Fowler turned, and for a moment he didn’t seem to recognize me. Then his eyes twitched, and he started backing away, his face a mixture of confusion and fear. “N-no,” he stammered, shaking his head. “No!”
He turned and ran. I chased him. A mother with two kids collecting leaves nervously gathered her children to her. I didn’t. blame her, but I didn’t have time to reassure her right now.
Even though I don’t work out as often as I should, I managed to catch him before he reached the fence on the other side of the park. I grabbed at his arm, and he stumbled and stopped, gasping for breath. “Abilosh,” he grunted. “Abilosh . . .”
“Who is it?” I asked, holding his arm even though he wasn’t struggling or trying to get away. “Is it Cory? Andrew Cory?”
His eyes grew wide. “Cory? Cory?”
“Yeah, you were at his house.” I let go of him. “Are you okay?”
He didn’t run. He just nodded, staring at me. “Y-yeah, I’m, uh, f-fine—"
And then a sharp shock of pan stabbed my leg, like a lance or a dagger. Or, I realized as I collapsed on the grass, an arrow.
For a moment I couldn’t see anything. The pain had me writhing and shuddering as I groaned. I tried to scream but my throat closed up. Was the arrow poisoned? Nobody had reported that. Maybe the cops kept that covered up.
I rolled over and managed to look up. I saw the sky, gray clouds drifting toward the south, and Fowler, worried. Not because of me. My head sagged, and as my eyes swam and started to grow dark. I tried to blink, and for a moment I caught a glimpse of a man in a dark red hood drooping over his eyes. He reminded me of someone I’d seen recently. Just today, maybe.
My last coherent thought was, Rachel is going to kill me. Then the pain took over and I passed out.
I woke up in shadows.
My leg still throbbed. I tried to reach down for it, but I realized my hands were tied with duct tape. I blinked a few times until my eyes cleared.
I was in a basement, with gray cinder block walls and rusty steel I-beams in the ceiling. An old refrigerator stood in one corner, a washing machine and dryer in another. Stairs led upward, but the upper floor seemed as far away as the top of the Sears Tower. Or the Willis Tower, they call it now.
I struggled to sit up on the ratty sofa they’d plopped me on and looked down at my leg. Someone had tied a towel around my right thigh, above the knee. The towel was blue but stained with my blood. I smelled rubbing alcohol, as if they’d tried to disinfect it before bandaging me up. After shooting me.
I closed my eyes. Yeah, Rachel was definitely going to kill me.
Rachel. She could track my phone. Except, I realized as I squirmed around, I didn’t have my phone. And I hadn’t texted her with an update since leaving Cory’s house. But at least I’d texted her his address. I relaxed a little.
I wondered why the Archer hadn’t just killed me and left me in the park. I was grateful, yeah, but still curious. Curiosity. It made me a good reporter and at least a decent detective, but I tried not to think about what it did to the cat.
My leg hurt. I tried shifting it on the sofa, but nothing helped. What time was it? How long was I unconscious? Maybe Fowler and the Archer were out hunting more prey. Maybe they’d left me here to starve. I wished I’d eaten more than those stale granola bars.
I dozed. My leg throbbed too much to let me sleep, but the shock and the fear were trying to knock me out. My head drooped and my eyelids sagged, and snatches of chaotic dreams streamed through my brain, mostly a mixture of flying arrows and sneering vampires, along with my mother looking disappointed and Rachel shaking her head in disgust. After a while I dreamed the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, but then I realized that wasn’t a dream and I opened my eyes.
I saw sneakers, then jeans. Then a mustache. Dan Gabler.
He crossed his arms and sighed. “You asshole.”
I groaned and tried to sit up. “You shoot me in the leg, and I’m the asshole?”
“You could have stayed out of it. Why’d you have to come after me?” He sat on an unsteady wooden chair. “You could have just gone home.”
I couldn’t resist arguing, even thought it might have been smarter to keep my mouth shut. “Greg’s wife hired me to find out what was going on. You asked Irina about Abilosh. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots.” Rachel says I’m like one of those jokers on her reality shows who can’t shut up. She could be right.
He sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It could be over by tomorrow. If they just—” He shook his head.
“Who?”
“Never mind.” He shook his head. “You just don’t know what you got yourself into.”
“Are you Abilosh?” I asked.
His eyes went wide. “Abilosh? Hell, no. Abilosh is just a tool. He’s under control. Or he was, until now.”
What was he talking about? “Then what’s—"
I stopped, hearing a door from above, and then more feet on the stairs. Big boots, then long legs and big feet, and finally a face: grizzled cheeks, sandy hair in a crewcut, and narrow, bloodshot eyes. He reached the basement and stared at me, arms crossed, like a hawk zeroing in on its prey.
Gabler stood up. “Andrew, take it easy. Tonight, everything will be over—”
“The hunt is never over.” He smiled. “The hunt is in my blood.”
“Andrew Cory?” I looked between them. “What’s going on, Dan? Who is this guy?”
“He’s my uncle.” He looked as angry at Cory as he was with me.
“And he’s the Archer? Abilosh? What’s going on?”
Gabler stared at his uncle, who ignored him. Finally he looked away. “He’s always been a hunting buff. He didn’t do any hunting himself, oh, no, but he collects books about hunters in history and mythology, that sort of stuff. One day about a month ago I went to check on him because he wasn’t answering his phone, and he was passed out with his face in some old book. I guess he got it from some rare book dealer. He was on the page about somebody called Abilosh, and when he woke up, he was—different.”
“Abilosh called me,” Cory said in a low voice. “He knows his own kin.”
“I don’t know” Gabler shrugged. “But after he was awake and moving around again, he told me to get him hunting supplies. Hunting people was all his idea. All of it. I called Irina, because she knows a lot about this supernatural stuff, and she told me about Abilosh. That gave me the idea to—well, anyway I figured I better do what he said before he hurt me. He’s pretty scary now.”
Cory seemed to loom over the entire room, but mostly he was glowering at me. “What about Fowler?”
“Abilosh calls for a hound,” Cory said. “To flush out the game. It is required.”
“He told me to find someone and show him the book,” Gabler said. “Greg was just handy—I’m sorry about that, but it’s not my fault.”
“Enough!” Cory—or Abilosh—jabbed a finger at me. “It’s time to finish this.”
“You don’t have to,” Gabler said, nervous. “Tonight could be the payoff—”
“A hunter never leaves wounded prey.” He sounded determined. “I will finish it.”
“Can’t you just do it here? You don’t need to—”
Cory swung around and grabbed Gabler’s throat. “I guide the hunt! Not you!” He squeezed. “I will finish what I began,” he growled.
“All right, all right!” Gabler pulled away, gasping. He lifted his head. “Greg!”
More footsteps on the stairs. Greg Fowler. His eyes were glassy, his lids drooping, as if he were drugged, but I thought I saw something like regret on his face. As if he was sorry I’d gotten shot.
“Get him upstairs and back in the van,” Gabler said. “Go with Abilosh. Wherever he wants. I have to stay here and—” He stopped, looked at me, and shut his mouth.
“What’s tonight, Dan?” I asked. “Something happening?”
“After tonight this can all be over. If they want it. If they pay.” He looked like he wanted to say something more, and then he looked angry at himself for saying anything. “Just take him! Go!”
Fowler shuffled forward slowly as Gabler found the duct tape and slapped a strip over my mouth. Then he pulled me off the sofa by my shoulders.
I’m not exactly John Wick, so there wasn’t any way I could fight. I tried to be as limpy and awkward as possible, but they got me up the stairs anyway.
We made our way down a short hallway. I tried to take in the rooms we passed so I could to identify the place later, if I had a later, but my head was swimming too much from the effort of climbing the stairs through the throbbing pain in my leg. I stumbled down three steps into a garage and leaned against the van I’d followed, and then Fowler jammed a canvas bag over my head. I heard a door open, and then I got shoved inside.
“Stay on the floor,” Gabler ordered.
For the moment I was happy to lie down, too weak to think about doing more than curling up and whimpering. Then the van started to back down ad driveway. When it started bumping over rough pavement and potholes all I could think about was finding a position that wouldn’t give me even more bruises over my body. I worried about what Rachel would say when she saw me. And I worried about my chances of her ever seeing me again.
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