#alval

Chapter 1

27 March 1962

23:26

Alastor had been singing to himself for the last twenty minutes.

Not loudly, never loudly, that would be embarrassing, but softly, under his breath, in the way he only permitted himself when he was alone and the road was empty and the radio was playing something worth the effort. Stardust, tonight. Hoagy Carmichael. The station had faded to static somewhere around mile thirty and Alastor had turned it off and simply continued from memory, his fingers keeping time on the steering wheel, unhurried.

He had a good voice. He knew this the way he knew most things about himself: clinically, without particular vanity, as a simple fact to be noted and filed.

The road was empty. Of course it was, no one came this way at this hour, no one with any sense came this way at all, and Alastor was choosing, for the moment, not to examine too closely what that made him. A man with no sense, presumably. A man who had read an overwrought letter from a child he'd never met and thought: yes, this seems worth four hours of driving. A man whose curiosity had always been, in the private accounting of his life, a more reliable motivator than wisdom.

Why are you going? His colleague Renard had asked, with the particular expression people reserved for watching someone do something avoidable.

Professional interest. Alastor had said.

Which was true, in its way. Vincent Whittman's name had been cropping up in places names didn't crop up unless something was quietly going wrong, in the margins of newspapers, in conversations that paused when Alastor entered rooms, in a letter that had arrived at the station three weeks ago on heavy cream stationery, written in a hand that was either very confident or very young, probably both. I believe we could offer each other something remarkable, Mr. Dubois. Exclamation points. Underlines. The letter of a man who had a great deal to say and considered the formalities of correspondence a tax on his own brilliance.

Alastor had read it twice, decided the author was insufferable, and made a note of the address.

Because, and this was the part he had not said to Renard, the insufferable ones were always the most interesting. And Vincent Whittman, loudmouth and self-proclaimed child of God and probable cult leader, had been building something in the mountains for years, quietly enough that most people hadn't noticed and loudly enough that Alastor had. A whole suburb. His own city. His face on every screen.

Probably a cult leader. Alastor tested the phrase again, absently. It sat in his head with the same mild curiosity as an unusual specimen in a jar.

He wanted to see what kind of man built himself a city.

He wanted to see if Vincent Whittman was as irritating in person as he sounded on television.

He suspected the answer to the second question was yes.

He almost missed it.

A shape, at the corner of his vision, there and not-there, the way things are when you catch them at the exact wrong angle. A shadow between two pines, too tall to be a deer, too still to be the wind working on branches. The shape of something standing and watching, patient as a landmark.

Alastor's eyes went to the treeline.

Nothing. Of course nothing. Just trees and the dark between them.

Hallucinations. He thought. Not enough coffee. Too many hours awake. He'd come straight from the station, hadn't stopped except for fuel, or thought he had stopped for fuel, he was fairly certain he had, though now that he was trying to reconstruct the memory it had the slightly gauzy quality of something done automatically, without attention. He'd been thinking about the letter. About what he was going to say when he met the man.

He was still thinking about it when the car appeared in his mirror.

It materialized out of the dark behind him and was on him almost immediately, headlights suddenly enormous, horn blaring, the car blasting past at a speed that had no business on a mountain road at this hour, missing Alastor's bumper by a margin that was technically sufficient and practically obscene. It disappeared around the next curve, already gone.

Alastor sat with both hands tight on the wheel and watched his knuckles return to their normal colour.

He was not driving slowly. He was driving carefully, which was a distinction that apparently eluded whatever maniac had just launched themselves past him at a hundred kilometers an hour on a blind uphill curve in the dark. There were deer on these roads. There were bends. There was the elementary physics of momentum and consequence, which operated independently of whatever schedule one imagined oneself to be keeping.

He exhaled. Unclenched his jaw. Resumed singing, more deliberately now, Stardust again, the second verse , because he refused to let a stranger's rudeness dislodge him from his own night.

He wasn't annoyed. He was simply noting. Filing it away.

He was perhaps a mile and a half out, close enough that he'd begun watching the treeline for the first signs of light, the promised suburb glowing somewhere ahead, when the car began to cough.

A small sound at first. A hiccup in the engine's rhythm, like a missed beat. Alastor glanced at the dashboard, then back at the road, and the car hiccuped again, more decisively, and then the third time was not a hiccup at all but a lurch, a stuttering loss of power that rolled through the vehicle like a shudder, and then-

Nothing.

The engine cut. The car coasted for a few silent, terrible seconds, decelerating on the uphill grade with the specific indignity of momentum surrendering, and rolled to a stop on the side of the road.

The radio, silent since mile thirty, did not come back on. The headlights held. The jazz station's last dying echo did not return to mock him.

Alastor sat very still.

The silence of the forest pressed in immediately, filling every space the engine sound had occupied. Wind in the high pines. Something that might have been an owl. The ticking of a car that had decided, unilaterally, that it was finished for the evening.

"…What." Alastor whispers.

He tried the ignition. The engine cranked, caught on nothing, churned through its cycle and produced only the grinding complaint of mechanical futility. He tried again. And again, with more intention, as though the issue were simply a matter of sufficient conviction.

"Don't." The word came out flat and precise, aimed at the dashboard. "Don't you dare."

The engine cranked. Did not catch.

"Stupid-" He tried again. "Useless-" Again. "Piece of- stubborn- absolutely- come ON-" He was not, he would have insisted to any observer, panicking. He was applying escalating degrees of firmness to a mechanical object that was failing to respond to reason. There was a difference.

He stopped. Pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

Think.

Alastor had not thought to stop, of course, he remembers refueling not even a day ago, it should have lasted him at least 300 miles. Still, he shouldn't have been so careless, he was going to drive to another state, in the hills. He had been in a fine mood, the kind of mood that hummed low in his chest like a song he couldn't quite place, all minor keys and brass, and fine moods made him careless. Made him generous with himself. He had watched the needle dip toward the red the way a man watches the sun set: aware it's happening, entirely unbothered, trusting that the next day will take care of itself.

The next day did not take care of itself.

The car rolled to a stop on a road that had no business being this dark. No streetlights. No passing vehicles. Just the thick press of pine trees on either side, standing so close together their canopies had long ago sealed hands above the asphalt, shutting out the sky entirely. Alastor sat with his hands still on the wheel for a moment, listening to the engine tick as it cooled.

Well. He thought, as he calmed down. This is unpleasant. Highly unpleasant.

He stepped out. The cold was the first thing, sharper than the season warranted, carrying the particular mineral smell of altitude and something older underneath it, loam and rot and deep still water. He adjusted his jacket, smoothed the lapels, and looked down the road in both directions. The same either way: dark, curved, disappearing into trees.

He had the address. He had consulted the map before leaving, had the route memorized with the precise and total confidence of a man who trusted his own mind absolutely. Two miles, approximately. He had walked longer distances for considerably less interesting purposes.

He began to walk.

The forest was loud in the way forests are loud only at night, insistently, just at the edge of comprehension. Alastor's shoes were good leather, unsuited to gravel, and they announced every step. He kept his pace even. He did not look into the trees.

He was not afraid of forests. He had grown up near one, had played in the Louisiana bayou margins as a boy, had learned early that the dark between trees was only dark. Nothing more.

Another shadow finds Alastor's peripheral vision. And Alastor swears this time it was real and it moved, slightly shaped like a robust man.

The dark between trees. Bloody hands wrapped around a man that had no business sharing his DNA. An axe. Blue eyes blurry. Losing focus.

He stopped walking.

He stood very still on the road, breathing through his nose, and waited until the image released him. It always did, eventually. Memory was a visitor. One simply had to wait it out, deny it the hospitality of attention, and it moved along.

Mouth gasping for hair, like a fish out of water. The adrenaline of a teen protecting everything that was solid in his world.

He did not have time to wait for the memories. The woods were very dangerous at this time. He continued, picking up the pace. Alastor doesn't know why this memory still haunts him. He had felt better, he had felt great, invincible, as if he finally had control of his life.

His father had deserved it.

His Maman had deserved better. So much better. She was the sweetest person one could ever meet.

She tucked Alastor to bed every night. Kissed his temple to sleep and sang lullabies. Beautiful tunes. Wrapping Alastor around a blanket of pure love and comfort. Made him the best food that no chef could match. Supported him trough everything. Loved him to the end. And Alastor swore to protect her.

And so he did.

When he found out who his father was. Threatening his mother because she had given birth to a baby she swore to get rid of. But she always had the heart of gold. Worked hard to the bone to keep Alastor clothed, fed, and educated. Alastor owed her his life.

So when he had got aggressive with her, grabbing her roughly. Alastor did not care to know who he was. He saw what he needed to see. Sickly pale skin, spewing filth to his mother.

Alastor slowly moved, quietly. Grabbing the axe they kept on the supply closet to chop wood to get them warm on cold winter.

Alastor's skin was itching, his eyes focused. His teeth felt too sharp in his mouth. He made a noise outside. And the man had been naïve enough to fall for it. Checking who made the noise.

Alastor grabbed his collar, pushed him to the ground with a force he had no idea he possessed. And took a swing at his neck. It was a clumsy swing, Alastor had to admit, and the axe had not been sharpened in a while. But it gave Alastor time.

The man clutched his neck, he couldn't speak, he was still conscious but whenever he tried to scream, a gurgled filthy sound escaped. Drowning in his own blood.

Alastor did not want his Maman to notice this. He was her golden boy. And forever will be.

Alastor bound him to a wheelbarrow. He bought a shovel with him. And went deeper into the woods. Alastor did not have time to focus on feelings. But what he remembered was feeling a deep satisfaction and feeling stronger than everyone in the world.

Time passed, and then, the man started to plead. Most of his words made no sense and Alastor did not care for them. He was focused.

At one point, the man kept repeating one word. Alastor focused on it, wanting to give the man the satisfaction of his last words. And then, he heard it. Between disgusting choking sounds.

"Son-"

Alastor has stopped dead in his tracks. His palms started to sweet. And the first thing he remembers feeling was dread. Then, fury, then repulsion. Pure, disgusting hatred boiling in his gut.

Alastor cut his ties swiftly and tackled him to the ground. Hands in his neck. Pressing on the open wound and the pulse point. The man thrashed, begged, tried to beg. His eyes got glassy. Alastor followed everything like a hawk, not even satisfaction reaching him. Mere pure hatred. Only satisfied when he watched the life leaving his eyes.

Alastor was out of breath. His skin tingling.

He grabbed his shovel and started digging

Alastor walked deeper into the woods, smiling to himself.

The lights came before the gate did.

He saw them through the trees first, not the warm orange glow of a town settling in for the night, but something colder. Blue-white. Like a television left on in an empty room. Then the treeline broke, and Helix Nebula opened before him the way a stage opens when the curtain goes up: sudden, complete, demanding to be looked at.

… Like it was waiting for him, albeit he did not warn he was coming. That should have been the first sign, and Alastor's fist mistake.

Alastor looked at it.

His first thought was that it was almost beautiful. The suburb sat in a natural bowl of land, the mountains rising dark behind it, and it was lit up like something deliberate, every house the same pale white, every lawn trimmed to the same precise height, every streetlamp casting the same cold glow. Neat. Ordered. The kind of order that requires effort to maintain and a particular kind of mind to insist upon.

… Alastor had to admit, he had not expected that.

There were anchors carved into the gateposts. Sea motifs, shells, starfish, the abstracted curl of a wave, worked into the iron as though someone had tried to build an ocean in the middle of the mountains and found it perfectly reasonable. A motto was engraved beneath the arch in clean, unadorned lettering.

TRUST ME

Alastor regarded this for a moment. Then he walked through the gate. Another mistake.

A woman was watering her front garden.

At, Alastor checked his watch, midnight forty-seven in the morning. She was watering her already-dark garden with a cheerful yellow watering can, moving methodically between plants that were either very well cared-for or artificial, and she was humming something that resolved, after a moment, into What a Friend We Have in Jesus, played in a different key than God intended.

She looked up when she heard his footsteps. Smiled.

It was a good smile. Practiced. The kind of smile that arrived too quickly and stayed too long.

"Good morning." She said.

"Good evening." Alastor said pleasantly. "I wonder if you might point me toward the Whittman residence. My car ran out of fuel somewhat down the road, I'm afraid, I arrived on foot."

Something moved behind her eyes. Quick, complicated, carefully suppressed. "Oh, how dreadful." She said. "Poor dear. Vincent's house is just at the end of Meridian, the big one, you can't miss it. He'll be so pleased to have a visitor."

"Will he?" Alastor queried.

"He does love company." She smiled again. Still too long. "We all know you're here, Mr. Dubois. We've been hoping you'd come."

Alastor paused. "I don't believe I introduced myself."

She smiled tighter, turning back to her watering. "Goodnight."

He passed five more people on his way to the end of Meridian Avenue.

A man walking a dog that did not appear to be moving on its own, it was carried, stiffly, tucked under one arm, its legs in the air. The man did not acknowledge Alastor. The dog was looking at him.

Two children sitting on a porch steps, side by side, not speaking, watching him pass with the synchronized attention of something that had agreed on a signal.

The strange feeling coiling in Alastor's gut grew. But he ignored it. Vincent had seemed an amateur. How he grew this village out of nothing in a year? No idea. But he ignored his common sense, a mistake, thinking he was only getting paranoid.

A teenager sitting in the light of a window. She was reading. She turned the page precisely as Alastor walked past, without looking up, and Alastor had the distinct and irrational impression she had been waiting to turn it until he arrived.

A man raking leaves at midnight who looked up when Alastor passed and said, without prelude: "The radio voice." He said it the way one says rain when you've been expecting rain. Then he went back to raking.

The last one was an older gentleman sitting in a rocking chair on his porch, hands folded on his lap, not rocking. He watched Alastor with the patience of someone who had been watching for a long time.

"Lovely neighbourhood." Alastor said, because he found it useful to say the opposite of what he meant in situations like this.

"He keeps it that way." The old man said. "He'll be very happy you're here, Mr. Dubois."

Alastor smiled. It was a careful smile. He had several in his repertoire and chose them the way a surgeon chooses instruments. "Everyone seems to know my name." He said.

"Everyone knows everything that matters." the old man said. "You're very famous aren't you?"

Alastor looked at him for a moment longer. Then he said. "Goodnight." And continued down the road.

The house at the end of Meridian Avenue was, as promised, unmissable.

It was large in the way that announces intention rather than necessity, the kind of large that says I want you to see me seeing you. White, like everything else, but more aggressively so, catching every ambient light source and throwing it back harder. Royal blue trim. An aquarium visible through the front window, lit from within, blue-dark, something slow-moving in its depths. Every curtained window on the upper floors had a slightly different light behind it, the flickering pulse of screens.

Cameras. Alastor counted four on the exterior before he reached the door. He stopped counting when it became clear that counting would take the rest of the evening.

He knocked.

There was a pause. The kind of pause that is arranged, not natural. Then the door swung open.

Alastor Dubois was not a man easily struck by the sight of other people.

He was struck, briefly, by the sight of Vincent Whittman.

Not because Whittman was beautiful, though he was, in the technical sense, handsome in a way that was architectural rather than warm, all sharp nose and squared jaw and slicked-back hair as black as the gaps between stars. Not because he was imposing, though he was that too, broad-shouldered and filling the doorframe with the comfortable certainty of a man who had never had cause to make himself smaller. He was struck because of the eyes.

One green. One blue. Both fixed on Alastor with an expression that was too precise to be called surprise. Too pleased to be called neutral. The look of a man opening a present he already knew the contents of, enjoying the formality of the unwrapping.

He was wearing a suit at midnight. Perfectly fitted. A small American flag pin on the lapel.

"Mr. Dubois!" Vincent Whittman said, and his voice was warm in the way of a room that's been prepared, thermostat adjusted, candles lit, the deliberate warmth of a performance. "I'm so sorry about your car. Please." He stepped back. "Come in."

Alastor regarded him. "I don't believe I mentioned anything about my car."

"Word travels fast in Helix Nebula." He smiled. It was a sharp smile, the kind that knew what it was doing. "I have a telephone. Come in, Mr. Dubois. You'll want to sit."

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