Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century 6)

“It was a long night,” Juan Rios mumbled around a stifled yawn. “There was a lot to clean up.”

“No one told the police? No one summoned the authorities?” the Ranger asked incredulously.

Sister Eileen answered as squarely as she could. “Well, we summoned you. In the past, yes, Sarah called for help; and at first, the police did come. But after a while…they stopped bothering, unless we asked them to take away a body to dispose of it. It’s like there’s a spell on the place, you understand? What gossip finds its way around speaks only of accidents, and unlikely tragedies with ordinary explanations—when any fool could see that’s not the case.”

“What about last night? Mrs. Fields, I think you called her.”

The padre supplied the rest. “It was very late, very bloody, and the storm…” he winced as a tree branch slammed into the window beside him; but the glass did not break, and he did not stop there. “The storm was coming for us. Sister Eileen thought it might hold off, and we would have another day to ask questions…but six hours ago, I had my doubts.”

They all kept silent for a long, uncertain moment—watching the gale whip the trees back and forth, throwing flowers and leaves, newspapers, laundry yanked from lines, and everything else that wasn’t nailed down…all of it boiling to a cauldron of mayhem, just on the other side of the glass.

“The eye of this thing will overtake us soon, that much is certain,” she said quietly. “What you see out there—it’s barely a fraction of what the weather will bring us. Have either of you ever encountered a hurricane?”

The Ranger said, “No, but I’ve heard stories,” and the padre

shook his head. He’d heard stories too, but none of them reassured him. The stories he’d been told were all about destruction, death, and an uncaring swipe from the hand of God. They were stories of coastlines scrubbed clean by a surge of debris, of entire towns that vanished into the ocean in the span of an hour.

“Stories never tell the half of it, or else they’re twice the truth,” she told them. “But it’s hard to exaggerate a thing like this. I hope that most of the island has evacuated. The official order finally went out before dawn, and anyone who can’t leave—or won’t—has been urged to seek shelter.”

Horatio Korman said, “You should’ve seen it, as I was coming in yesterday: all the ferries full, coming out of Galveston. I was the only idiot headed in.”

The padre gave a small, short laugh that sounded like a sigh. “That’s how it was for me, too. Now you’re stuck here, with us. And with whatever…” he paused.

The Ranger spared him, and summed up quickly: “With whatever’s killing people, inside this hotel.”

“You believe us? Really, you do?” asked Sister Eileen. Relief was written all over her face, but Juan Rios couldn’t imagine why. Believing wasn’t going to save any of them; she knew it as well as he did.

“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t.” He pulled out a pouch of tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette while he said the rest of his piece. “Look, I know the Jacaranda Hotel is strange—damn strange, if you’ll pardon the language. But I’ve seen strange things before, and even the weirdest cases have some explanation behind them. It’s not always rational, and not always something you can prove…but I’ve seen patterns, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” He paused to lick the rolling paper and tap it shut. “And the way you described it all in your letters to Austin, I got the sense of another pattern. This one looks awful, and I don’t know if I can help…” For an instant, his calm concentration flickered—and the padre saw something uncertain behind his eyes. Then it was gone, and the Ranger produced a match. “But here I am, anyway.”

Juan Rios let him light the end and suck it until the coal glowed, and then he said, “It’s almost like you were called here.”

Sister Eileen protested, “No, it’s not like that at all. He’s a man doing his job, isn’t that it? I called him here, not the hotel.”

“Sure,” the Ranger said. But there it was again, that droop to his brow—a thoughtful glance that went sideways, and back again. He wasn’t half so sure as the nun pretended to be. “But for starters, let’s treat this like it isn’t strange.”

“How do we do that?” the padre asked.

“By asking questions. You two have tried that, I assume?”

The nun nodded. “Yes, but the hotel’s guests aren’t the most forthcoming bunch.”

She then told him what little they’d learned so far, mostly from Sarah. Finally, though she seemed reluctant to confess it, she added Sarah’s feeling that everyone was called there for a reason. “But not you,” she insisted again. “You’re not one of the guests, not really.”

“If you say so, sister, but we’re all in the same boat now—so I’m not sure it matters any, who called whom. Besides that, do you think she meant that folks were called here…or they were sent here?” he asked.

“I don’t understand…”

He tried again. “Do you think they’re lured here by the hotel, or do you think they’re sent here by some other power? That’s what I’m wondering: What if this is where you go, when it’s your turn to go to hell?”

The Ranger took a few more notes while he listened to Sister Eileen and Father Rios; and when everything had been said—everything they could remember, no matter how ridiculous—when it was all laid out, he declared his plan.

“I know you two didn’t get very far in your investigation, and I can guess why. You,” he pointed at Sister Eileen, “aren’t from around here. And neither are you,” he said to the padre. “But you, Father—you’ve got a leg up with the Mexicans here…or the ones who used to be Mexican, you know what I mean. What Spanish I know isn’t very good, and I’m well aware of how your people tend to view Texians, not that I take it very personal.”

“It’s just as well that you don’t,” the padre said.

“With that in mind, I’m an officer of the law—and that gives me both an advantage, and a disadvantage. First, I can run around asking questions and nobody will think twice about it. But second, most of them would rather chat with a preacher than the police.”

“We’re a veritable triad of difficulties,” the nun sighed.