5.7
“Crocell?” Landis tastes the name on his tongue, completely foreign, as he does his best not to stammer through it. He can feel a blush creeping over his cheeks, and holds the hand that the strange man - Naberius - kissed close to his chest. “I don’t, uh, I don’t think I know anyone by that name. Or…or any demons to begin with.”
Naberius tilts his head owlishly again, his mouth drawn up into a quizzical sort of frown. “Are you certain?”
“I’m pretty sure I would know if I met a demon,” Landis says much more confidently than he feels, wracking his brain to try and figure out if he actually has met anyone who seemed particularly demonic. He can’t think of anyone who quite fits the description. Demons are supposed to have horns, right? Is that even true? If there are people who can reach out and touch ghosts, maybe there are demons who don’t have horns. Austin would know this.
“That is strange,” Naberius says, blinking several times in rapid succession. “You are Landis Holliday, are you not? I was told that you were the most recent caretaker of the property Crocell was sealed on, before they…well, before they escaped and then were killed, in relatively short order.”
The property - he doesn’t mean the lake, does he? That was a demon? Landis feels rooted to the ground. Why does he want to know about any of that? For that matter, how does he know about the lake in the first place? Or that it was…killed, I guess?
“Who the hell is this guy?” Mal asks from above, voicing most of Landis’s sentiments in one, tidy question.
Naberius looks upwards, his dark eyes zeroing in on Mal. “You must be one of the ones sacrificed to Crocell.” He frowns, his eyebrows furrowing as a dark expression passes over his face. “My deepest condolences. It must not be easy to live in between life and afterlife, such as you are.”
Landis feels like he should say something, but can’t work the words out of his throat, and just stares at Naberius, stunned. From the silence above him, he can guess that Mal is doing about the same. Naberius stares back at the two of them, clearly waiting on someone else to continue the conversation.
“You can see me?” Mal asks, finally, much quieter than before.
“Of course I can see you,” Naberius says. “You were one of the sacrifices to Crocell, were you not?”
“Why do you want to know?” Landis interjects, stepping in between Naberius and Mal. “Look, ghosts are vanishing into thin air all over town, so you’ll have to excuse me if I can’t bring myself to trust someone who’s been mysteriously stalking me and scaring the shit out of me, when I just so happen to have at least one or two ghosts also trailing me most of the time.”
Naberius frowns harder. “I apologized for scaring you.”
“That doesn’t really change the fact that you were following him around like a creep,” Mal says. “Or that you haven’t told us what you’re doing here.”
“I did tell you,” Naberius insists. “I just want to ask you some questions regarding the death of Crocell.”
Landis rolls his eyes. “That was two years ago! If you wanted information about that, why didn’t you come and ask back then?”
“Bureaucracy,” Naberius says flatly, and plows ahead before either Landis or Mal can ask any follow-up questions. “Regardless, asking questions is all I was sent here to do, and the people I work for happen to have a vested interest in understanding just how it is that a group of humans was able to defeat a demon so utterly.”
The people he works for? Landis chews the inside of his cheek, thinking. Maybe he’s someone from the Department. It would be a little odd for Austin’s brother to send people out now, especially with Walker right here in town, but maybe they want to see what they can learn from us? Maybe Austin’s brother was expecting him to come home sooner and spill the beans. Or the Department is just so short-staffed that they couldn’t spare anyone until now. Or he’s from some other branch of the Department that didn’t hear about what happened until later.
Landis doesn’t know much about how the Department of Paranormal Research operates, but any of those seem like fairly likely answers. He folds his arms over his chest, subconsciously mirroring the way Naberius stood earlier.
“So, you were sent here because of Austin, then.”
“I - yes.” Naberius looks a little taken aback. “Well, partially. Austin Jones is on my list of witnesses to Crocell’s death, and I am supposed to question all of them. But I assumed it would be more pertinent to start with the most recent caretaker of the land Crocell was bound to.”
“I don’t think I can tell you anything pertinent,” Landis says. “I didn’t even know the thing in the lake had a name. I-I mean, I didn’t even know the lake was possessed, by something else, until Austin showed up. I thought the lake was just…doing things on its own.”
“Well, maybe you should’ve thought to investigate,” Mal mutters.
Landis doesn’t bother to retort, because Mal is right. If Landis had ever thought to see what was out on the island in the middle of the lake, maybe this whole mess could have been avoided. But then again, maybe not. There’s no way to say if he would have discovered the cave that held the seal inside of it - from the way Austin tells the story, it was buried under rocks.
“Austin was the one who actually got possessed by, uh, by Crocell, I guess,” Landis adds.
Naberius’s eyes go wide. “He was possessed? Before the seal was broken?”
“Yeah.” Landis nods. “It…they?” Naberius nods, and Landis continues. “They took control of his body, and used him to get to the island and break the seal. And then tried to use him to kill me and some other people, I guess, but I stabbed Austin and bought him time to force them out of his body.”
“He forced Crocell out?” Naberius’s eyes widen even more, and he leans towards Landis, urgently. “On his own? How?”
Landis takes a step backwards, holding his hands up in front of him. He expected the other DPR agents to be strange, certainly, but getting in his personal space is a bit much.
“Look, I don’t know,” he says, “but you can go and ask Austin, if you want. He works right down the road at the library.”
Naberius seems to take the hint and backs off a little. He draws his pocket watch seemingly out of thin air, which has to be some sort of sleight-of-hand trick, and flips it open to check it. Landis can’t see what’s on the face of it, but Naberius’s eyes follow something in circles for a moment before he abruptly flips the watch shut again.
“Yes,” he says. “I think I will ask him. It - it has been good to meet you.”
He looks like he might be about to bow again, so Landis decides to cut him off, sticking out a hand to shake. Naberius freezes in place and looks at Landis’s hand like it’s some sort of logic puzzle.
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Landis says, hopefully.
“Yes,” Naberius says. “Right.”
He takes Landis’s hand in both of his and pumps it up and down, just once, before turning on his heel and walking briskly away. Landis stays still, watching him go, until Naberius turns down a side street and vanishes from sight. Even then, it’s an effort to get himself to start walking again.
“Well, that was fucking weird,” Mal says, following him more closely now. It’s almost like they’re walking right next to each other, except Mal is deliberately making himself a little taller than Landis. Landis snorts.
“You’re telling me.”
“So what now?”
“I’m going to get my car so I can meet up with Grace,” Landis says.
The apartment complex isn’t too far from Main Street, anyways, and he can stop off and warn Otter that someone from the Department is going around asking questions. Walker probably already knows, but there’s no way that Otter does, and word is eventually going to get around to Naberius that Otter was one of the people who directly killed the lake entity. Crocell. Whatever. The point is, better to warn Otter than let him flounder in an interrogation with some complete weirdo.
“What about Austin?” Mal asks. “You did just kinda set that guy loose on him.”
“He can handle himself,” Landis says. “I mean, his brother runs the Department. I wouldn’t be surprised if that weird guy turned out to be one of Austin’s friends.”
This time it’s Mal’s turn to snort. “You know what? Me neither.”