Blackmail Earth

Chapter 10





Jenna appeared on The Morning Show four more times in the next hour and a half as the thunderheads drenched the thirsty city, overwhelming storm drains and New York’s beleaguered sewer system, which sent what was flushed out of toilets right into the Hudson and East rivers. Lots of “brown trout” this morning. All 840 miles of the subway system also shut down after water rushed over the third rail. And the downpour sent scores of kids into the flooded streets to play and splash. On Fifth Avenue the water rose so high that pedestrians had to take off their shoes and dodge rooster tails of water from passing taxis. But the real nightmare—a tornado—hadn’t formed. They were rare in New York, but by no means unheard of.

When Jenna collapsed next to Dafoe on the couch in her office at a little after 9:00 A.M., she felt drained.

“You earn your money,” he said.

“Some of it.” Sometimes it was hard to believe she earned far more in a month than nurses, cops, and teachers earned in a year. Not to mention dairy farmers or her deceased parents on their hardscrabble family farm.

“Come on.” Jenna stood and grabbed Dafoe’s hand. “I want to see firsthand what I’ve been talking about.”

She didn’t let go of him as they hurried to the elevator, despite the openly curious glances of her coworkers. She didn’t much care. His warm touch felt positively delicious.

They hurried out of the building’s grand entrance—all brass and marble and crystal sconces—to find every seam in the sky still wide open; but the rain was warm, the air warmer still.

The two of them sprinted under a jewelry store awning—bearing one of New York’s most notable names—and watched the world trudge by under umbrellas or with the collars of their slickers cinched to their chins. No one noticed the handsome couple huddling together; the weather, ironically enough, was granting her precious minutes of anonymity.

“See all that water.” She pointed to the overflow now inching onto the sidewalk. “That’s exciting. Not good,” she added quickly, “but exciting: Nature’s reclaiming the city for a few hours.”

Buoyant over Dafoe, the rain on her skin, and the percolating thrill of these ebullient seconds, Jenna scooted to the curb and dipped the toe of one red shoe into the rippled rainwater rushing by. “I hate these shoes,” she said, face beading with droplets. “They’re so tight they make my toes ache. I told the Barbie Master that I’d never wear them again.”

With that, she took them off and splashed into the water. She had a wild impulse to scoop up handfuls and drench Dafoe, but a crazier urge overtook her instead, and this one proved irresistible: She pinched his open collar, lured him even closer with a look, and kissed him lusciously, right there in the pouring rain.

Almost instantly she pulled away in alarm, realizing that one unflattering cell phone photo could land her on Page Six, the New York Post’s notorious gossip column. But in a city under siege, no one offered more than a glance at the romantic couple.

Jenna kissed him again and took his hand. “My apartment’s a ten-minute walk from here.”

“What about work? Your—”

“It’s done for now. What about your cows?”

“A friend’s getting them milked.”

They ran through the rain, wetter with every step. By the time they reached her building, Jenna’s dress clung to every curve, and she didn’t mind a bit when Dafoe undressed her with his eyes.

* * *

You’re getting closer, he thinks. He looks ahead through the Hansel and Gretel forest, bare branches drooling rain.

She’s right in front of him. Striking distance. But his eyes race past her to the cabin. His first glimpse this morning. Same brown color as the woods but the roof line gives it away.

You’re getting closer.

* * *

Asthma. She hasn’t had an attack since she was a kid and would get frightened and anxious. She’s having one now. Gulping for air, but getting nothing. It’s been so long since this happened, yet it feels so familiar, like the body’s memory is better than the brain’s.

I can’t … breathe.

Five more steps to the door.

Dear God, get me there.

She doesn’t consider the strangeness of her plea, the wildly tangled prayer of panic to the patriarchal “God-the-Father” of her broken childhood. She beats on the door with her fist while her other hand tries the handle. The door opens. She barges in, looks back. The first time in minutes.

He’s twenty feet away.

“F*ck,” she gasps. Breathless, she slams the door. Flimsy lock in the handle.

Her gaze finds the window. Glass. So fragile.

Like you.

She looks around the room. For anything. It’s small and empty.

BAM.

She jumps at the wicked sound of his fist on the door. She takes precious seconds to concentrate on breathing while he beats a bizarre rhythm on the wood. It is a rhythm. Like a rite. And strangely, this scares her more than anything that’s happened so far. She catches a half breath. Enough to make her want more. Enough to make her think she might survive. Enough to let her look up.

He’s staring at her through the glass.

So fragile.

Like you.

* * *

Jenna’s doorman stepped aside with a smile that undercut his dignified façade. She possessed little more restraint, stepping into the lobby still holding her red shoes. They ran to the elevator, leaving behind wet footprints.

Alone, sweeping up through the building floor by floor, they kissed feverishly before she jerked away from him once more. With a quick glance, she indicated a security camera in the corner of the elevator. “It’s not supposed to be on unless there’s an emergency, but you never know.” She wanted her appearances on YouTube to be on her terms.

But waiting for the privacy of her apartment was agonizing. With a lurch, the doors opened, and they raced down the hall. She stabbed a code into a keypad before pressing her thumb against a Plexiglas plate. The bolt slid open.

As soon as the door shut, they held each other like they were the first and last people on Earth. Her dress dropped to the floor, sopping wet, and she felt the warm caress of his eyes as keenly as his hand moving gently against her legs.

Jenna unbuttoned his shirt and kissed his chest, then luxuriated in the feel of his fingers slipping into her panties, touching her.

He kneeled, and she watched him peel off her panty hose. He nuzzled her hungrily, and her breath began to come in bursts. She felt a teasing release of lace on her hips and bottom as her panties came down, like he was peeling her open. His kisses never stopped. He removed her bra so smoothly he might have been a magician.

Shaking too much to stand, she lowered herself to the plush Persian carpet and moved her legs apart, accommodating his intentions without a word, trembling. He brought his lips to hers, though his hand remained faithful to her most intense pleasure. She wished he had five hands, and pressed herself so hard against his chest that she felt enveloped. In a frantic flurry, she yanked his pants all the way down, rolled him over, and pressed his back to the floor. His hands cupped her bottom and drew her forward to his tongue. In furiously fast moments he made her cry aloud.

* * *

Tiny cabin. Staring at her is like looking at someone in jail. She’s not going nowhere.

She’s chesty again, like she’s still running hard. Those big breaths that make her big breasts come alive. He sees their outline clearly, like watching a wet T-shirt contest. He smiles ’cause he knows that kind of breathing doesn’t come from running. It comes from being scared shitless. Nothing else does it like that. He’s seen it before. Lots. They run and run and where do they end up? Cooped up just like this. Rats in a corner.

He taps the window. Gently. Catches her eyes. Still big as pinecones. This is working out fine.

He picks up a rock. Size of a cabbage. Heavy. Real heavy. He looks at her. Shrugs. Smashes the glass.

He pulls out his knife. A big bowie. Blade’s ten inches long. Overkill. He smiles at the thought. Blade’s silver. Shiny. Like you could blind a man—or a witch—with its reflection.

He uses the butt of the hilt to clear away pieces of glass still embedded in the frame. They pop out cleanly. Putty’s so old it crumbles like stale cake. He reaches through with his knife, pointing it while he talks, as if he’s giving voice to the gleaming weapon.

“Open the door.”

She grabs a wooden candelabra. The only thing she can find. He laughs.

“Open the door. If I have to climb in there, you’re going to pay.”

* * *

I’m going to pay anyway. She slaps her sides, searching again for her phone, even though she knows better. Still, she pleads with it to appear. She had it earlier, before she started running. It’s in your bag, where you always keep it. But it doesn’t matter: She’s miles from nowhere, and he’s taking apart the window pane by pane. Smashing it to pieces. Glass and wood chunks hit her. She can’t get away. Can’t breathe. Can’t even move enough to smash his hand with the candelabra. The world’s exploding, and she knows with shocking certitude that she’s about to be murdered in their house of meditation.

She shakes her head. A spell, she tells herself. Cast a spell. But her breath still won’t come. It feels like he’s already choking her to death.

Air freezes in her chest every time he shatters more glass. She hopes she dies before he touches her.

She thinks that may be her life’s final plea, that her body will choke her to death before his hands—and that knife—can touch her.

* * *

Jenna and Dafoe had eventually reached the bedroom and now looked as thoroughly disheveled as the covers. He propped himself on one elbow as she ran her fingertips across his chest. “I feel so ravished,” she said.

Dafoe moved aside strands of her wet hair. “Me, too.”

She shivered and grabbed the phone. “I should call Nicci and let her know I’ve ducked out. We always take a break right after the show, but this was a long one.”

Moments later Jenna watched him read a text message. He mouthed, “I’ve got to go.”

* * *

The candelabra rests by her side. It’s her only hope but she can’t lift it. She’s almost paralyzed by panic. She tries to breathe, and hears air whistle weakly through her chest. She manages to lift the candelabra, and thinks that if she could get one good swing at him, she might stop this madness. But she needs one good breath and she can’t get it. She keeps seeing the damage she knows the knife can do.

“You witches know about sacrifices, don’t you? They can’t be done too fast. You got to take your time. Get as much out of it as you can.”

He pauses and fear washes over her again.

“Sacrifices don’t happen every day. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.” He says this matter-of-factly and eases a leg through the window frame, casually, like he’s got all the time in the world.

And he does. This is what sickens her most: recognizing that whatever time she has left belongs to him. She’s gripped by rage and yearns to run at him while he’s still, just staring at her like she’s a disease.

But her breath forsakes her, chokes her.

Don’t die this way, she tells herself. Don’t.

He swings his other leg in so he’s sitting and facing her, the knife at his side.

“Put that down.”

She drops the candelabra. Not because she wants to obey him; because the lack of air has left her so weak that she falls to her knees.

He pushes himself off the windowsill. His feet pound the floor. She feels the cabin shake and prays for the strength to run through walls.

He stands in front of her, placing the tip of the long blade under the point of her chin. But she won’t raise her head. Her eyes are closed.

“You messed with a lot of people, and you got away with it, but you don’t mess with me. You went too far when you did that, and now you have to pay. Do you understand?”

She doesn’t reply. Keeps her eyes closed. It’s the only choice left to her: enter a darkness of her own volition. She feels the blade press harder into her chin.

“This takes time,” he whispers. “It’s never fast. The commandments are clear.”

The first cut opens her chin all the way up through her lips, leaving her gums bare and bloody.

* * *

Dafoe raced his old green and white pickup north on the New York State Thruway: He couldn’t get back to his farm fast enough. He’d called Forensia repeatedly, greeted only by “Please leave a message.” He’d finally reached his old friend and fellow dairyman, Jasper Fricke, who’d promised to get the cows milked and pastured. Now, while Dafoe steered with one hand, he rang him again.

“She’s not here,” Jasper blurted out as soon as he picked up.

“What about Bayou?”

Long pause. “He’s not here, either. I’ve been moving so fast that I didn’t stop to think about him.”

“He should be there. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Wait a second, Dafoe. I just walked up on your porch to get some shade and I don’t like what I’m seeing. There’s a blood smear right by the door. A good foot long.”

“Jesus, call the sheriff. Forensia could be—”

“There’s some muddy coyote tracks here, too, right near the blood.”

“Coyotes?”

“No mistaking them. Four or five sets. Christ, one of them left a calling card.”

“Jasper, go into my mudroom and see if my varmint rifle’s in the closet.”

“Okay.”

It sounded like Jasper was rummaging in the closet.

“Your varmint gun’s not here,” the man reported. “Definitely gone.”

“Forensia must have grabbed it.” That’s good. More than likely it wasn’t her blood.

“I’m back outside,” Jasper said. “I want to take a closer look at those tracks. I’m following them down the steps now. I can see Forensia’s footprints, too. The rain’s washed away a lot of them but it looks like she was taking big steps, moving fast.” Jasper grew up hunting and tracking like Dafoe.

“How much blood did you see on the porch?”

“Just that one smear. Know what I’m thinking, Dafoe? That—”

“The coyotes got Bayou. He stopped them last week when those sons of bitches went after my calf; and now—first time my truck’s gone for more than a few minutes—they tried to get him so it could be open season on the herd. Forensia would have been hell on wheels if they were tearing up Bayou. You see his tracks anywhere?”

“Nope.”

“That figures if he got dragged off. You mind following Forensia’s prints as best you can? If she went after them, she could be in a lot more trouble than she counted on.”

“I’m on it.”

“You got your gun?” asked Dafoe.

“Not with me.”

“Take my pistol. Top shelf, kitchen cabinet by the stove.”

“Hold on.” Dafoe heard Jasper walk back in the house. “It’s not there.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Look, I’m going anyway,” Fricke said.

“I’m calling the sheriff.”

* * *

Ninety minutes later, Dafoe pulled up to his farmhouse. His recent cell phone calls to Jasper had gone unanswered and the lack of news was driving him nuts. The sun beat down harder than ever, a big red blister boiling in the sky. The herd was the only sign of life. The sheriff’s old Bronco was parked by the house, but the man was nowhere to be seen.

Dafoe ran inside, hoping to find everyone settled in his big country kitchen where he’d first kissed Jenna. But the room was empty and his shouts raised no response. He saw Forensia’s capacious shoulder bag on the counter and hesitated briefly before poring through her stuff. He pulled her phone from the bag, confirming that she’d run off in a hurry. Or been dragged off. She always had that phone with her. A ring tone confused Dafoe until he realized that it came from his iPhone in his pocket, not Forensia’s cell, still in his hand.

At a glance he saw that it was Jenna calling. He gave her an update, hung up, and ran out of the house. On the porch, he stared at the woods and brush where the coyotes skulked day and night, like barbarians on a border. He hated those sneaky four-legged thieves like only a farmer can.

To his shock, three figures staggered from a distant thicket—Jasper and Sheriff Walker with Forensia between them. Jasper also cradled Bayou; the border collie hung limp as a November leaf.

Dafoe raced across the parched land. Blood soaked Forensia’s hand to her elbow, and the coyotes must have ripped up her leg just above the knee because her jeans were torn and sodden with dark stains.

“I’m sorry, Dafoe. I’m so sorry,” she said.

“He’s not dead yet.” Jasper nodded at Bayou. The dog’s eyes were shut—one of them was crusted in blood—and he didn’t stir when Jasper handed him to his master.

“I got you, boy.” Dafoe’s soothing tone belied an inner rage.

“I just got here, but I’m sure he needs a vet, and this one needs an ER,” Sheriff Walker said. “She killed three of them.”

“I wish I’d killed all those f*ckers,” Forensia cried. “They were trying to murder Bayou. I was getting coffee in the kitchen when he started barking and growling, and then he screamed a second later—I mean screamed. I grabbed your gun and ran outside. A coyote twice his size was dragging him off. I got the first two right then. It took a while but I got the big one down by the draw.”

“Thank you” was all Dafoe could say. He felt Bayou’s heart beating. He knew a tough dog didn’t die easily, but Bayou had been chewed up and dragged a long ways.

The sheriff drove Forensia to the hospital, while Dafoe rushed Bayou to the animal clinic. Dr. Pauline Berkley took one look at Bayou and had Dafoe carry him back to a stainless steel examining table.

The tiny vet, who weighed less than the biggest dogs she treated, methodically palpated Bayou nose to tail, paying particular attention to his torn scrotum and bloody eye. She took even more time with his right leg; the fur had been stripped off all the way down to the foot, and the leg looked as raw as a hock in a butcher’s case.

“I’ll X-ray him, but it’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t have at least one break in there.”

“Coyote dragged him off.”

Dr. Berkley was examining his other legs. “Dragged him off?” She shook her head. “He’s lucky he’s alive.”

“Forensia saved him, got her pound of flesh, too: killed three of them.”

“Forensia?” The vet glanced at him. “Miss Earth Woman?”

“Yeah, she must have been something fierce. But Bayou’s one of her favorite things in the whole world.”

“Love brings out the mama bear in all of us. Bayou’s lucky she was around. I’ve had four other dogs and five cats taken by coyotes in the last month. They’re getting super aggressive. It’s the drought: Everything’s drying up from one end of the food chain to the other.”

She worked in silence for a few minutes. “Look, Dafoe, this guy’s going to lose a testicle, maybe both of them. I think his eye may heal but we won’t know for sure for another week or two. But what’s going to slow him way down, probably for good, is his leg. Even if it’s not broken, he’s got torn-up tendons and ligaments and some of his pad is missing. There’s no replacing that stuff. Border collies run on a lot of piss and vinegar, but he’ll need more than that to ever work again.”

“Is this a nice way of asking if I want him put down?”

“It’s as delicate as I can be.”

“Save him. I don’t care what it costs.”

“I can’t promise you that he’ll live. He could get sepsis and—”

“Do it,” Dafoe interrupted. “Whatever you can.”

Dr. Berkley shouted for her assistant, then turned back to Dafoe. “We’ve got to get started right now. You should wait outside.”

“I’m going over to ER to see Forensia.”

* * *

A young doctor had just finished putting sixteen stitches into Forensia’s left forearm when Dafoe walked in. She had seven more in her leg.

“You okay?” Dafoe asked her.

The physician started to answer. Forensia cut him off: “I’m fine.”

When Dafoe heard that she wasn’t about to let anyone, including a doctor, speak for her, he figured that she really was doing a lot better.

The physician left them alone.

“Christ, Dafoe, I really went insane when I saw those coyotes ripping up Bayou. I haven’t hunted since I turned vegan at fourteen, and there I was gunning them down. The biggest coyote took it personal and tore into me. I had to use your rifle like a club, and when I got him down I really went crazy. Beat him halfway to death before I thought to shoot him and put him out of his misery. It makes me wonder who the hell I really am.” She winced and shook her head as she finished, and he knew she needed reassurance.

“The person who saved Bayou’s life, that’s who. They’re operating right now, and he’s got a good chance of making it, thanks to you.”

Forensia burst into tears of joy and stood up, hugging him. Dafoe held her till she steadied. Then he helped her check out of the hospital, gather up her prescriptions, and get into his pickup.

* * *

Tears of rage came hours later, after Sang-mi hiked to a remote meditation cabin with a simple meal for GreenSpirit. She found the Wiccan leader murdered, mutilated, her body drenched in blood.

Sheriff Walker rushed out there as soon as the breathless, hysterical Korean acolyte called 911.

“A ritual murder, that’s what we’ve got,” the sheriff later told a large, tightly pressed crowd of journalists who’d raced up from the city. He described the lurid pentagrams that had been carved into GreenSpirit’s chest, cheeks, and belly, and promised a “full and complete investigation, no matter where the evidence leads.” The comment immediately sparked speculation that GreenSpirit’s vicious demise was linked to the one man who might have the most to gain by her silencing: presidential candidate Roger Lilton.

But every witch and Pagan in the region feared that a witch hunt—in the most horrific sense of the words—had begun.