It was frustrating, anxious work. One slipup could land us in prison. Even the natural joy of snooping was diminished by how careful we had to be.
There were two photos framed on the wall: one of Gertrude and a man who must be Sebastian holding hands on a mountaintop, with a valley and river in the distance below. He was an unremarkable old white man, hard to distinguish from any other.
The other photo was of a younger couple in the same place. Probably the two of them thirty years earlier. Younger, he looked happy and handsome. The difference between the two made me sad: happy old couples give me a sort of hope. But judging by those photos, the happiness had been gone for decades.
There were glaciers in the background of the older photo, but they had melted by the time the newer one had been taken. More sadness. Why should the march of time be inherently melancholic? It didn’t seem fair.
I opened the frames, carefully. No hidden notes. Not even a date written on the corner to sate my curiosity.
I hadn’t done snooping like this more than a handful of times. The first time, a couple of us had robbed some rich asshole’s house and sold his stuff for food. I was young, reckless, and I’d never been to jail, so it was just kind of fun. The second time, the whole affair had been deadly serious. My friend’s mother had been trapped in an abusive relationship, so we’d broken into the man’s summer home for blackmail to hold over his head so she could leave him in comparative safety. That time, the stakes were too epic for it to be thrilling, but righteousness imparts a kind of high of its own. Both of those men had had entertaining secrets like embarrassingly crass porn collections or a false-bottom drawer with cheesy ninja weapons hidden inside.
Sebastian Miller had an easy chair, a bed, a bookshelf full of mediocre-but-not-embarrassing books, and a fuck-off big TV. A mounted deer—nothing impressive—and a run-of-the-mill hunting rifle hung on the wall. My pack stayed empty.
“There a basement?” I asked at last, after I’d checked every damn horror book on his shelf for a hidden compartment.
“Maybe through the office downstairs,” Heather said.
“Okay. Office, basement, and then I give up.”
“We’ll find something,” Heather said.
“What’s he like?” I asked. “He weird or anything?”
“I never thought twice about him until Gertrude came back,” Heather said. “He drives a 1950s truck, that’s about the most interesting thing about him. He used to come by the library sometimes, check out thrillers for himself, romance for Gertrude. Called her Gertie. He was the only one in town who called her that. I don’t think she liked it.”
The office door, behind the checkout counter of the gift shop, was locked with a dead bolt. I got out my tools—I keep a tension wrench and a basic rake in a hidden pouch in the waist belt of my pack, usually to break into Dumpsters for food—and set to work.
“Who the hell are you people?” Heather asked. “Climbing in second-story windows, busting out lock picks like it’s nothing.”
Brynn laughed in that out-of-character giggle of hers. “We told you, we’re demon hunters.”
“We should get a crew name,” I said.
“The Uliksians,” Brynn said, without hesitating.
“We can’t name ourselves after a demon we banished,” I said.
“No, no, think about it,” Brynn said. “Uliksi wasn’t bad because of what he did, stopping those who wield power over others; he was bad because he was the single manifestation of that ideal. We can do that same work, but as people. Not omnipotent.”
“It doesn’t really roll off the tongue,” Heather said.
“Fine,” Brynn said, “fine.”
The tension wrench gave way in my hand, the lock turned over, and I opened the door.
Just an office. Well, an office straight out of the eighties or nineties or whatever. Big, ugly monitor on a big, ugly desk and the carpet was about twice as thick as could be reasonably justified. There were two other doors on the far wall.
“One of you a hacker too?” Heather asked.
I shrugged.
“Sure,” Brynn said. “Vulture is.”
We went through the drawers, found nothing but business receipts and junk mail.
“To be honest, I don’t think we’ll find anything on the computer either,” I said. “I think this whole thing is a bust.”
I opened one of the two doors. A closet. With cleaning supplies and office supplies. I opened the other door.
Now here was something interesting.
The door led to a short hallway—about ten feet long, with another door at the other end. Above the door, someone had crudely carved in Greek letters:
τίποτα ζωντανό δεν θα περάσει
Brynn and I stared blankly.
“Uh,” Heather said, squinting. “Tipota zontano den tha perasei.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“No clue. I can’t really speak Greek. I just learned how to sound it out a couple years ago. Vasilis is Greek, I think I was trying to impress him.”
“How long have you and him . . .” Brynn started to ask. I don’t know if she trailed off because she was shy to ask with me around or if she realized it wasn’t the time and place.
“Five years,” Heather said. “It’s good. Mostly.”
She opened the door. A set of plain wooden steps led down into darkness.
“I sometimes wish . . . I don’t know,” Heather said. “I wish things were easier between us. More relaxed. He’s not controlling, but somehow . . . I just wish I felt more free.”
She took a step through the doorway.
This time, my perception of time slowed down. I saw her hand move and green light rippled out across . . . something. Like someone had strung an invisible window screen across the doorway. Her whole
