The Man in the Long Black Coat: Dale Bruyer, #1

By J.L. Aarne

Dale Bruyer and James Sandover were huntsmen: monster hunting heirs to a secret legacy, warriors and students of magic. Until James died and left Dale all alone on a self-destructive path through alcoholism to an early grave.

 

Then a killer begins ritualistically murdering young women in the small town of Solagrove, Louisiana and the deaths may or may not be paranormal, but Dale gets drawn into it anyway. There is something very familiar about the murders and someone has to stop them.

 

Witnesses describe seeing a man in a long black coat who sounds a lot like James, and it doesn't matter that it's impossible. Dale knows it's impossible because James is dead. There is absolutely no question about it.

 

But in Dale's world, corpses sometimes get up and walk away from their graves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.L. Aarne
• Release date: Nov 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386934769

J.L. Aarne

J.L. Aarne currently lives in the Northwest United States. She was born in Washington, but she has moved around a lot and lived in many other places. She has two cats, Jack and Wally, and she is a compulsive collector of notebooks and coffee mugs, which she drinks tea out of. Aarne studied English and literature at the University of New Orleans. Her favorite fictional characters always seem to be the villains. Aarne blogs from time to time at [e-mail] You can also connect with her on Twitter @jl_aarne

Book preview

Chapter 1

JAMES DIED.

He was diagnosed at Tulane Medical Center. Dale sat with him through all of the tests, waited in the hospital waiting room to hear the verdict, then cried with James murmuring comfort in his ear after they told them that he had leukemia. Dale lost hope there, and not long after that, James died while Dale was sleeping in the chair beside the bed. Dale brought him back home to the house they had bought outside of the city where they had intended to live while James got better.

Instead, he buried him beneath the roots of a giant cypress tree in the back yard. It took Dale more than three hours to dig the grave and he felt like he was counting each and every shovelful of dirt, every one falling like the bang of a gong on his heart. He salted the grave and watched the way the salt hit the coins he had placed on the lids of James’s eyes until his body was covered with it, then he went on filling the grave in a shovel of dirt at a time until it was done. So James was very much dead, there was no doubt whatsoever about that.

Instead of moving on, Dale stayed in the house. He slept on the sofa rather than sleep alone in the bed he had shared briefly with James. Without him, the queen-size bed felt as vast and hopeless as an ocean. Most nights, especially if he was drunk and his blood was warm with whiskey, he’d sit out on the porch swing and talk to James, watching the stars between the branches of the cypress tree as the swing chain creaked with rust. He’d get drunk on Night Train or dandelion wine out of a mason jar and pass out draped over the arm of the swing watching lightning bugs dance through the grass by the back steps. James never talked back and Dale knew, with a certain finality that is rarely given to loved ones of the deceased, that he was gone, but that only made it harder to get any kind of closure.

Huntsmen were supposed to die fighting monsters; they weren’t supposed to die of blood cancer. They put their heads inside the mouth of the lion every single day and they had been prepared that one day the lion would bite down and they would die the way they had lived. They had not prepared for a death as ordinary as James’s cancer, and certainly not so soon. He was only thirty-five and so powerful. More than any of them, how the fuck had James died that way?

It was June when he died and there was a fog on the little pond near the cypress tree when Dale buried him. It didn’t leave until August and Dale sometimes watched it light up with foxfire and glow. It always looked haunted because of the mist and the glow gave it an otherworldliness that Dale kind of liked, though it sent a chill up his back if he looked at it too long.

Time passed like polar night when every day is black. There were days and there was sunlight, but Dale barely noticed it. He moved through everything in an out-of-focus fog of grey. Every morning and every night was twilight. He was surprised and enraged to learn that James had had a life insurance policy of which he was the beneficiary. One and a half million dollars. When he found out about it, he went out to the back yard and screamed at James’s grave, calling him a selfish, logical, rational bastard. The money was blood money and it didn’t make it any better that James had planned for him to have it. It felt like Dale was being paid off, like the one million and a half dollars was payment for James cold and rotting in the ground.

When he stopped shouting, he wept and begged him to please, please, Jimmy, please just stop being dead. Don’t do this. I can’t do this without you, Dale said, on his knees in the dirt with his face close to the salted ground. I’m only good when you’re there, you know that.

James went right on being dead and the only thing that answered him was the indifferent sound of the soft wind whistling through the grass and the chirr of a thousand cicadas.

It got a little cold in the winter, but it was the Deep South where a cold winter meant 30 above, not 30 below. Dale drank more whiskey to keep himself warm and wore a coat to sit outside on the porch when he talked to James. He didn’t even think about monsters anymore. Killing them was something he had done with James when he was alive and that life was over. As Dale was unqualified for the kind of employment most average people did, and had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that manifested in an extremely violent way in any case, it didn’t occur to him to try to find a job in town. A job might have at least provided him with a distraction from his grief, but instead, he drank more and marinated in his pain.

He didn’t socialize with anyone outside of the people who sold him his groceries, cigarettes and booze. He and James had not had any close family to worry about for several years. Sometimes a friend would call to ask him how he was doing. If he talked about it, they would listen, but as the months passed and the pain stayed just as huge, just as raw and all-consuming as ever, Dale sensed them growing impatient with him and less sympathetic. He started screening his calls.

Near the end of April the angel Uriah came to Dale for help, hoping to shake him out of his suicidal lethargy. Dale had long given up on fighting demons, monsters, ghosts, phantoms, vampires, or anything supernatural whatsoever. He’d fought that battle a long time with nothing to show for it and lost nearly all of the people he had ever loved because of it, so with James gone, he was done and the world could go straight to Hell in that old proverbial hand basket for all that he gave a damn. Regardless, it might have been unwise to say all of that aloud to a not-so-nice fallen angel of the Almighty, which was exactly what Dale did.

Uriah sighed and leaned his hip against the porch railing, his arms crossed over his chest and a disapproving scowl on his eternal young face. So, you’re just going to sit here and get drunk?

Because he’s gone, hung in the air unspoken.

Now you’re catching on, Dale said. He pushed his toes against the porch to make the swing sway a little and took a deep swallow from his mason jar. I was actually kind of hoping to be passed out by now, he said, lifting the jar in a mock toast to the disgruntled heavenly creature. "No such luck. Unless, of course, you’re a hallucination. I doubt it because even I don’t hate me that much, so I def... definitely wouldn’t go and make you up to keep me company. Dale leaned toward him and lowered his voice to a slurring whisper. You’re a terrible conversationalist, he confided. Anyone ever tell you that?"

Uriah sighed and looked down at the toes of his boots with a frown. You... are a great disappointment, Dale Bruyer.

Yeah, I get that a lot, Dale said, unimpressed. "But that’s free will for you. Ain’t it a bitch?"

Uriah’s lips quirked and his pale eyes flashed with real amusement when he looked back up at Dale. Yes, it is.

He raked a hand through his shaggy black hair and, even drunk off his ass and swaying, it struck Dale as interesting and a little strange the way such human habits looked coming from an angel. Even if the angel was a long-time resident of planet Earth and the Biblical equivalent of an illegal alien.

I thought to somehow convince you to come back with me, Uriah said. Rejoin the fight. But... that’s not going to happen, is it?

He looked at Dale with an expression of deep, resigned sadness. His eyes were ancient in his smooth young face and there were infinite centuries of wisdom and knowledge in his expression. That look made Dale feel like he had been judged and found wanting. It was one of those looks that made Dale want to shove a harp up Uriah’s celestial ass. Uriah could be a smug prick, but then he looked like barely legal, punk rock jailbait and he never aged a day unless he felt like it, he could drink Dale under the table three times over and never have a hangover, and Dale had seen him kick the asses of some very gnarly monsters without breaking a sweat, so maybe he had a lot to be smug about.

I got a better idea, Dale said. He patted the spot on the swing beside him invitingly. "Why don’t you sit down here, have a drink, fucking relax—maybe yank that flaming sword out of your ass—and we can watch the world end. One... shooting star at a time. Whadda ya say?"

I regretfully am going to have to decline, Uriah said. He stood away from the porch railing and started down the steps. I knew you had lost hope, he said. But this... It’s such a waste.

"Wasted, man, Dale called after him. Uriah kept walking across the back yard, the mist making him seem less substantial with every step. Wasted, get it right! There’s a difference! He half stood, but almost toppled over and decided to sit back down. Oh! Tell your ex-boss when you see him again that I said hi! Tell him I hope Lucifer plays a little Twister with his omnipotent fucking insides and gives him a little taste of that pitchfork! Tell him from me that I hope his fucking Heaven falls down around his ears and he can go straight to Hell! The bad kind! Dale caught his breath to continue shouting then shook his head and took another drink from his mason jar. And I’m talking to myself."

He shifted to lay down on the porch swing, holding his jar over his head and up in the air as he moved around, careful not to spill it. He lay on his back with a heavy sigh, one leg thrown over the arm of the swing, resting against the chain, the other on the floor to keep the swing in slow, easy motion. He watched the stars, none of which were shooting at the moment, and stared at the moon, which was a big yellow crescent in the sky that looked heavy enough to fall and pierce him straight through. God’s thumb, he’d heard some elder people refer to it when the moon was like that. If it was God’s thumb, Dale thought with cynical, drunken amusement, it might come down from the sky and mash him like an annoying bug any minute.

Just to see, he waited for it to happen.

Somewhere not too far off, a coyote sang its laughing, yipping howl to the moon and a dog answered it. Dale closed his eyes, listening to the deep-throated barking, and fell asleep thinking about angels. His mason jar rolled across the porch as his hand went lax, leaving a path of sweet wetness on the ash colored wood. It fell with a soft thunk into the long grass.

Sometime in the night, a slug found it, drank from the tiny puddle of liquor at the bottom and died of it.

IN THE DARK, DALE HEARD James speaking to him and at first couldn’t understand the words because they were whispered. He was overcome with the desire to go toward the sound and distracted by the fact that he couldn’t get up from where he was laying sprawled on the porch swing. Then he made himself be still, stopped trying to get up and the voice drew nearer, whispering in a sing-song voice that sounded gravelly with disuse.

Good morning, Dale, James said, and Dale shivered because he could feel James’s breath rushing over his neck and sense him crouching down beside him to speak by his ear. I’ve missed you.

Jimmy? Dale said. Once again he tried to sit up, but he couldn’t. It was like the wine had drugged him and weighed his body down, like lead in his skin everywhere he touched the wood of the old swing.

Do you believe me? James asked.

Yes, Dale said.

There was a flash in the dark, something catching light that wasn’t there and sending it back, hitting his eyes, making him blink. The earth is colder than you’d think, James said. And the salt burns.

I’m sorry, Dale whispered. His eyes stung with sudden tears and he turned his head to search out James’s form in the dark. Another flash, sparking like candlelight on metal. It danced a little in his vision before it disappeared. I can’t see you, Dale said. Jimmy... let me see you.

There was a soft huff of laughter and the flash of metallic light blinded Dale and made him blink. He tried to keep his eyes open, sensing that that little bit of nowhere shining light might let him see James if he could look beyond it, but it hurt his eyes and he had to look away.

Not yet, James said. His breath smelled like fresh tilled garden soil. There was a light touch on his cheek and Dale made a soft, throaty sound of yearning as he tried to move into the touch of James’s familiar fingers and, because of the damnable nature of the dream, could not. Again, but not yet.

When? Dale asked. He licked his lips and felt the cracked skin. In his drunken confusion, he wondered at how vivid this dream was that he could feel the sting of his own chapped lips. James...

Wake up, Dale, James whispered, and Dale could feel that earthy breath on his mouth. So close.

The light flashed in the dark again, made a click, click, click sound and he realized with a sudden jolt what it was. James was dancing one of the coins Dale had placed upon his eyes when he buried him across the knuckles of his right hand. When James walked it over his middle finger, the coin hit the ring he wore on that finger and made that sound. Click. Click. A light from somewhere caught the shine of gold on the thin rounded edge of the coin and this time he didn’t blink. It reflected far too brightly to be real and the yellow light hit James’s face, revealing an eye that was milky, a scarred cheek that was hollowed and dark lips that were curved just a little. It was only an instant, but it was more of James than Dale had had in a long, long time, and more of him than he had ever hoped to have again.

Wake up, Dale, James said again as the darkness closed around him like black water.

Why? Dale asked. I don’t want to wake up, James.

I know, Dale, but you have to.

Why?

James laughed softly and it was different and yet still the same. Gravelly, like James’s throat didn’t quite remember how to make the sound. Because there’s a dog stealing your shoe.

DALE WOKE WITH A JOLT that nearly toppled him out of the porch swing. He still fell out of it, but it was more of a lurching crawl. He attempted to catch himself on one of the porch rails and fell against it. Something had his foot.

He looked down and locked eyes with his neighbor lady’s weird-looking blue-eyed dog, which had his knotted shoelaces in its mouth. The dog wagged its tail at him and tugged, making Dale skid a little on the porch and grab for the rail to keep from landing on his ass.

"Motherfucker, let go," he snapped and let go of the rail with one hand to wave at the dog’s head.

That wasn’t such a good idea because the dog yanked on his shoe again as it backed up a step and Dale lost his footing. He sat down heavily and let go of the rail so he wouldn’t be hanging by it, which sent a vibrating ache up his spine. It echoed in his head and made his eyes throb.

Son of a bitch, he muttered, putting a hand to the bridge of his nose to massage it, like that would do a damn bit of good.

Still holding the laces of his shoe in its mouth, the calico-spotted cur lay down and started to work them in its teeth as it watched Dale.

Very funny, isn’t it? he said to the dog.

The dog grunted and made a grumbling sound in its throat.

He says yes, said a woman’s accented voice as a shadow fell over Dale’s head.

Dale tilted his head back to find his neighbor, whom he’d only seen from a distance the entire time he had lived there, looking down at him with amusement.

Great, he said. He considered the dog chewing at his shoelaces and debated for a minute. Then he reached over and took the shoe off before once again attempting to stand. A gift, he mumbled. Ignoring the old woman (did she really have chunks of mirror glass braided in her hair?), he used the porch rail to hold himself up and pulled himself along as far as it went then just kind of reached out and fell toward the door, caught it, and miraculously managed to get it open without falling. All under the watchful eyes of his crazy neighbor woman and her thieving dog. From me to you. Stupid dog. Oh God, my head. Smite me now.

Shouldn’t tempt the Lord so, boy, the woman said. He may take you up on it one day.

I’m counting on it, Dale said. He got the screen door open, wincing at the creaking sound the spring made, and went inside. "Bastard fucking owes me, he said, muttering it to himself as he leaned against the washing machine just inside the entry hall. He wrenched open the inside door then leaned against the doorframe, panting. For pain... and suffering."

Uh-huh, and how many other people in the world think the same thing, do you think? the woman asked, watching him through the screen door. Mostly he don’t smite no more ‘cause even his great arm got tired, I think. Give the boy back his shoe, Semjaza, she said to the dog, turning away from Dale.

Dale looked around at her standing there with her arms crossed under her small breasts then dropped his eyes to the dog. He watched with surprise as the dog got up and carried his shoe to the door, where it obediently set it down then sat there watching him with its ghostly eyes, wagging its tail.

Dale scrubbed a hand over his face and made a pained sound in his throat. He was really hung-over and badly in need of a drink to make himself stop shaking. He felt like he had little imps on his fingertips stabbing him with hot little pitchforks. Hell, he was still drunk.

He can have the shoe, Dale said. I... gave it to him. Oh fuck, oh God... excuse me...

He lurched into the house and a mental picture of his bathroom flashed in his mind, but he quickly changed that into a picture of the kitchen sink because he just wasn’t going to make it that far. He grabbed the edge of the sink and aimed for the basin because yeah, he was really fucked up and even sober, he didn’t give much of a shit if his house was a mess, but even he didn’t want to have vomit drying on the windowsill. By some miracle he managed to get most of it into the sink itself and stood there with his head down, retching until his stomach was empty and he was left exhausted, painfully dry-heaving and spitting bile.

Dale was shaking when he finally managed to stop. He stood with his head down, breathing shallowly to keep from retching and jumped when he felt a cool hand on his face.

Boy, what in the hell were you drinking to make yourself so sick like that? the woman asked, feeling his face as he turned to look at her.

Dale frowned and turned around, shoving himself away from the counter just enough to slump back against it. Name’s Dale, not boy, he said, wiping sweat off his forehead. Who the hell are you, anyway?

Daphne Michon, the woman said. She pulled her hair back from her face, did some kind of mysterious tying thing that only women with long hair and a lot of experience could do to tie it back from her face, and grabbed Dale by the arm to lead him over to the kitchen table.

He thought about protesting, because who was this crazy woman in his house with her dog sniffing around the beer cans on his floor like it was thinking about pissing on them? And wow, she wasn’t wearing a bra and her nipples were kind of pointing in his face as she shoved him down into a chair. He forgot about protesting beyond the feeble waving of his hands because his stomach suddenly flipped and his throat constricted. He thought for a frightening moment that he was going to throw up again and he just couldn’t do that because there was nothing left down there but his lungs, which he kind of needed, at least until God got His tired ass all rested up and decided to commence with that smiting thing.

Dale blinked stupidly at Daphne when she sat down at the table across from him with a cup of water and three pills held out to him in one hand. What’s this? he asked, taking the pills.

Old Cajun cure for what ails you, she said sagely, then grinned at him, flashing a gold tooth on the top right. They call it aspirin. Just shut up and take it.

Dale put the pills in his mouth and took the offered cup of water to swallow them with. It occurred to him that he might like the old bitch if he weren’t feeling like such shit and therefore feeling intensely uncharitable to just about every inhabitant of the planet.

Semjaza came over and rested his head on Dale’s thigh with a soft groan and Dale lightly patted him, careful not to pat too hard lest he jostle himself and make himself sick again. All right, so maybe he wasn’t feeling uncharitable to all things—he had given the dog the shoe right off his foot, for Christ sake.

You wouldn’t happen to... actually know a cure, huh? he asked, only a little hopeful.

‘Fraid not, Daphne said. Hangovers is just one of them things.

Just exactly what the holy hell did that mean?

Means you just got to endure it, Daphne said.

Oh Jesus, don’t do that, Dale muttered. "Makes me think you’re reading my mind or something and I just can’t deal with that right now because if you’re not human, I’d have to kill you—not for the sake of humanity or anything, but just for my own peace of mind because I really can’t be living next door to a mind-reading witch-demon-whatever right now. I came here to retire, and okay, so that wasn’t really by choice, but the least you people can fucking do is leave me to it, don’t you think? Especially when I drank like... a lot of that wine crap last night and there’s nothing left down there but lung and stomach lining and I’m not really up to an exorcism at the moment and I’d probably slur it anyway and send you to Singapore instead of back to Hell."

Dale put his hands over his face and let out his breath in a huff. After a minute, he spread his fingers and looked at her between them. Daphne looked back at him with one eyebrow raised and a perplexed expression.

Boy, what the fuck you on about? she asked, then waved her hand like it didn’t matter. Been to Singapore. Kinda nice. You go right ahead. I could use me a vacation.

Dale leaned on his elbows on the table and peered at her across it. He thought his eyes might be bloodshot. They certainly felt bloodshot. You wouldn’t say that if you knew, he said, slurring half of it.

If I knew what? Daphne asked. I already figure you’re a bit touched in the head, but you don’t scare me so much.

If you knew... I could do it, Dale said. He lifted a hand, worming it between his body and the table edge, and pointed at her. Send you to Hell. If you’re a demon. Are you a demon?

Been called a lot of things, but I ain’t no demon, Daphne said seriously. Seen me one or two in my time though. Nasty motherfuckers.

Oh, good. Dale sat back and put his hands flat on the table in front of him. Kind of liked you there for a minute. I hate when that happens.

Daphne lifted a brow at him. When you like people or just the ones you think is demons?

That. The second thing, he said, lifting his finger again and making a swirling gesture with it. What are you doing here, anyway?

Daphne smiled at him and sat back in her own chair as Semjaza traded Dale’s lap for hers. I just come over here to make sure you was all right after that tree out back there nearly fell in your house.

Dale stared at her for a long time without saying anything. Then it clicked and he half jumped, half stumbled out of his chair and lurched for the door.

What tree? he asked as he lurched his way out the back and nearly fell down when he hit the screen door and it didn’t immediately swing open. Fucker, he muttered under his breath, then slammed it open a little harder than necessary just to show it who was boss.

I said, that tree out back, Daphne said. She and the dog followed him outside and she kept a careful eye on him so she could grab him if he stumbled, miscalculated or tripped and went off the porch. You got you a granddaddy cypress tree in your back yard, or didn’t you notice?

Didn’t I notice, Dale grumbled to himself. He made his way down the porch steps, holding onto the railing as he went to keep himself upright. Of course I fucking noticed. I buried Jimmy under that goddamn tree.

Ah, so that’s who that was, Daphne said.

Dale halted with one foot on the grass and the other still on the last step and turned to stare at her. You saw him, he said. When did you see him?

Daphne blinked at him then shrugged and continued down the stairs. She thought about taking Dale’s arm and helping him across the yard since that was where he seemed hell-bent on going, but he had a death-grip on the iron railing that looked like it might be painful if transferred to her. If by ‘see’ him you mean that long thing you had wrapped up in something and packing it across the yard about nine or ten months back then yeah, I seen him. She gave Dale a funny look then went around him and started back across the yard, going slowly so he could keep up. Somehow I don’t think that be what you mean, though, huh?

Dale wasn’t listening to her anymore. When he stepped off the porch he could see the tree, huge like a fallen giant, its massive corpse stretched out across the grass. As he got closer, he could see the roots like a tangle of venomous serpents sticking out of the soft, black earth, slick with red and black clay.

Oh God, he said, and he tried to get to the edge of the tree well, but he had to stop and grab for the tree trunk, nausea rising up in his throat hot and greasy to make him choke.

Daphne came up beside him and patted Dale on the shoulder. He groaned and tried feebly to shrug her away. It ain’t going nowhere so take it easy, she said.

"But James—"

Ain’t going nowhere either, Daphne said.

Don’t talk about Jimmy like that, Dale muttered belligerently. I gotta...

Dale lurched away from the tree and had to grab for an uplifted root as he fell to his knees beside the tree well. He leaned forward to look down inside and almost fell in, but Daphne caught the back of his shirt and hauled him back up. The deep hole beneath the tree where the roots had been ripped out had filled with water and he stared at his own muddy reflection in confused dismay.

I gotta get it out. The water’s gonna get in and Jimmy—

"What you gotta do is quit leaning like that or I’m gonna let your ass go and you can swim for it," Daphne said, once again yanking him back from the hole.

Dale flailed at her and got free only to fall back against the side of the tree, panting. Semjaza sniffed around the roots of the tree and lapped at the water. He made a disgusted snorting sound and quickly retreated from the water