Sweet Child Read online

  Brie Tart

  Sweet Child

  Heart of Hellfire: Book 1

  First published by Dapper Cat Books 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Brie Tart

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  CONTENT WARNING: This story contains explicit gore/violence, medical/surgical torture, an arson attack, death of a family member, sexual references, and cursing/rude language.

  First edition

  Editing by Dustin Holifer

  Cover art by Starla Huchton - www.designedbystarla.com

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

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  CHAPTER 1

  “What’s the job?” Helen balanced her four-year-old daughter, Lucy, on her hip while pouting at her boyfriend across their bedroom.

  “I don’t know. He hasn’t told me yet.” Dylan smirked, showing off his dimple as he stacked his worn X-Men omnibus in his suitcase. Tightly rolled t-shirts and jeans filled the rest of it. “I might not even tell you when he does. You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

  “Up.” Lucy pointed to the ceiling.

  “Can you blame me? Nobody’s blown their court date in a couple weeks.” Helen groaned as she lifted the toddler onto her broad shoulders. “I’m going stir crazy. Talk Uncle Tommy into taking me instead?”

  “I’ve been stuck behind a reception desk downstairs for years. You don’t see me complaining.”

  “You picked that job. I picked bounty hunter. I need some action.”

  “Birdy!” Lucy bounced on Helen’s shoulders.

  Helen glanced to the window. The boughs of the decorative tree planted by the sidewalk rustled against the glass. Neither of the pigeons building a nest there had shown up yet. “Where is it, Luce?”

  “No.” Lucy flapped her arms. “Birdy.”

  Helen switched her attention to the city block beyond the branches. Their second story apartment overlooked a busy side street in the historic edge of downtown Cleveland. Nothing flew over the strip mall across the way or the brick factory-turned-office-building rising five stories behind it. The blue sky had a few wispy clouds, but no birds.

  “Still not seeing it.”

  “No!” Lucy grabbed two clumps of her mom’s black hair and yanked.

  “Cool it Lucinator.” Dylan swooped over and plucked Lucy off Helen. He spun the girl around. Her ecstatic laughter filled the room. The two synced together with a harmony Helen couldn’t touch. They shared everything: a head full of gold curly-cues, being smaller than everyone else their age, a natural ease in the way they moved. Lucy might have had her mom’s Carver-green eyes, but the rest of her was Daddy’s Girl through and through.

  “I thought it was Lucy Goosey.” Helen rubbed the back of her scalp where Lucy had tugged. It didn’t hurt too much, but it reminded her why her daughter liked it better when she went out on jobs and Dylan babysat.

  “That’s when she’s silly, not mad.”

  “Fishy!” Lucy squealed.

  “Dive! Dive!” Dylan dipped his daughter, then scooped her up like a dolphin jumping out of the water. “Why don’t you and Lucy make up your own games while I’m gone?”

  “She doesn’t give them a chance. Maybe when she’s older we’ll find something. But now, I suck at this.” Helen tried teaching Lucy how to box once. Lucy’s first match had been versus a giant bear. She cried when she tried hugging the stuffed animal and it bopped her. “She’s gonna be miserable.”

  “You’re not wrong.” Dylan sighed as he landed Lucy on his hip. “Fine, go ask Tommy. ”

  “You got it.” Helen walked around the bed and into the hallway.

  “I guess you’d better help me unpack.” Dylan nuzzled his nose against Lucy’s as Helen passed.

  The old apartment’s layout set their bedroom right across from Uncle Tommy’s. Down the hall, the living room and kitchen shared the rest of the hardwood floors that creaked with every step Helen took. The little groans brought out the history of the place, or so Tommy always said. It was the same reason he claimed the Carver Investigations Agency offices downstairs had to keep their fluorescent lights and second-hand wifi router, both of which flickered on and off throughout the day.

  Helen rapped her knuckles on her uncle’s door to the beat of Shave and a Haircut.

  “Is that Pipsqueak or Hellion?”

  “Can Dylan knock that high?”

  “Hold on.” Rustling papers and a laptop snapping shut came from the other side—Helen’s ears picked up more than most. Tommy opened the door a crack and popped his head out. A few toilet paper patches covered the recent nicks from shaving around his graying goatee. “What’s shakin’, kid?”

  “Nothin’. And that’s the problem.”

  “I said I’d tell you when the next job came up, didn’t I?”

  “Then why is my other half packing?”

  “Shit. The little snitch told you, didn’t he?”

  “All I had to do was ask.”

  “Would it kill him to lie sometimes?” Tommy shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just a cheating case.”

  “Then why take Dylan?”

  “He’s better with the camera.”

  “You don’t hide trips from me unless it has to do with Mom.” Helen frowned when her uncle scratched his chin. It was his tell. It gave away his bluffs every time, both when they played poker and when he lied about investigating her mom’s cold case disappearance and death. “I knew it.”

  “It’s a good lead.”

  “Does it pay?”

  “No, but it’s worth checking out.”

  “You sure it’s not another goose chase?”

  “Yes.” He went to scratch his beard but stopped. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Is the bank account full enough for this?” Helen leaned into the door jamb, crowding the gap Tommy saw through. “I’m not trying to nag, but it’s been slow. If I can cut down on my gym time, you can ignore wild leads.”

  “You’d change your tune if I took you instead.”

  “If it was a normal job. This ain’t normal. You told me you’d leave Mom alone when Lucy came along, remember?”

  “I tried.” Tommy massaged his forehead. “I’ve passed up a ton of potential leads since she was born.”

  “Yeah, I know. When you’re not chasing Mom’s ghost, it shows. You start acting like when I was a kid, happy and smiling. But then you sneak out and come back a wreck. It’s not healthy. You need to move on.” Helen had seen her share of Tommy’s ups and downs as she grew up. Before they settled in Cleveland, he would come home, pack everything they had, and drove them all night to somewhere else. In a matter of days, they would set up in another state, another apartment, another school. Then Dylan and Lucy joined the picture. Tommy changed his routine. He’d lock himself in his room for a couple weeks straight with a few bottles of Jameson. The
the light stayed on in there all night, every night. He only came out when Helen knocked and shoved a pizza at him.

  “There’s too much there for me to just let go.” Tommy opened the door enough for her to walk through. “Come on.”

  “You don’t have to explain if—”

  “You’re never gonna get it unless I tell you something. The whole secretive shtick worked when you were my yes-girl. Now it’s getting in the way and...I’m not as sure I can protect you anymore.”

  Helen sidled through and sat on Tommy’s latest thrift store mattress, right next to his heaping collection of yellowed gumshoe paperbacks and DVD case full of noir films. The springs squeaked and sagged under her weight. Her six feet of solid muscle added to more pounds than Tommy’s beer gut. “Protect me?”

  “Why do you think I never wanted you knowing anything about my digging?” Tommy dropped his voice to a whisper as he locked the knob behind her.

  “‘Cause it hurt to talk about.”

  “What do you remember about that night?”

  “Not a lot. Just that she went weird all of a sudden.” It was Helen’s turn to lie as she glanced at the shiny stab marks on her hands. She still had nightmares about that night a couple times a year. It kept the memories fresh.

  Before Helen’s mother went missing, Elaine “Ellie” Carver had been a self-proclaimed white witch and a modern hippie. Tommy had to sneak Helen out to buy her burgers because his sweet sister didn’t believe in stocking meat in the fridge. Helen’s childhood home always smelled of vanilla and sage from the weekly cleansings her mom performed before washing dishes. Elaine’s favorite saying to throw at Helen during a fit was, “If it harms none, do what ye will.”

  The woman who stormed into Helen’s bedroom that day wasn’t the same person.

  “What about the ritual and the fire?” Tommy pressed.

  “Bits and pieces, I guess.” Helen rubbed the puncture scar on her left palm. Her mother had stabbed the first knife into that hand, then pinned Helen’s right arm with another one. Helen was a heavy sleeper. She hadn’t noticed that someone dragged her from her bed and threw her on the floor. The pain woke her up. She’d screamed her lungs out.

  Elaine chanted something in a language that clawed under Helen’s skin and sang. Her one voice became a wailing chorus as her black hair changed to snow white from its roots. The color leaked from her face until it was gray as a corpse with green eyes. Flames sprouted around them in a circle.

  “What about the people that came in?”

  “It gets fuzzy after you got there.”

  “She got involved with some dark stuff. There were bad people after her.”

  “We talking mafia bad or Satanic cult bad?”

  “Honest? A little of both.”

  “And you’re taking my boyfriend into that?”

  “Before Lucy, he used to go with me all the time while you were out on jobs.” Tommy squatted in front of Helen. He closed both her hands in his like their serious talks when she was small. “I know it seems like a crazy conspiracy.”

  “A little.” Helen bit her lip. “So you go out on these leads to take them down?”

  “That’s part of it. They’ve gotta pay for taking my sister.”

  “What about us? You’ve got me, Dylan, Lucy.”

  “The Pipsqueak’s a big help, and he’s good for you. Plus I love that Diamond Girl to pieces. But they’re yours, not mine.” Tommy gave her a soft smile with sad corners. “That’s the other reason I can’t stop. I can’t help but think they’ll come after you if I don’t do something.”

  “I’m not Mom.” Helen squeezed his fingers. “I’m not gonna disappear and die on you.”

  “She didn’t know that.” He kissed Helen’s knuckles, his beard fuzz scraping them. “And neither do you.”

  “Okay.” Helen took a deep breath, in and out. Could she buy into this? Would it help him move on if she did? “Let’s say I believe you need to do this. Maybe this lead’ll be different. Why not take me? If it comes down to a fight, I want to have your back.”

  “Pipsqueak has more experience. It’s the real reason I hired him. If I don’t have the know-how for something, I’ll need his.” Tommy smoothed Helen’s long hair back from her face. “And no matter how good you are, I can’t risk you. You’re all I’ve got left.”

  “Wait, you didn’t rope Dylan into this stuff?”

  “No, I dragged him back in. I’d wait ‘til we get back to talk to him about it, if I were you. He gets touchy.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” Helen got to her feet and pulled Tommy with her. Her uncle’s fear that Elaine’s death would come back to haunt Helen—and by extension her family—needled at her gut. Maybe she should’ve paid more attention over the years. It wasn’t too late to start taking Tommy’s obsession with the past seriously, was it? “When you get back, you’re telling me everything. I’ve got people of my own to protect now. Deal?”

  Tommy stood with a solemn nod. “You got it.”

  * * *

  Tommy and Dylan loaded their suitcases into the trunk of Tommy’s aging Honda Civic. While Helen liked her cherry red Harley Softtail better, her uncle’s old car had a good transmission and new tires. If it could take care of her on rough jobs, it would take care of both her guys while they were away.

  Tommy picked up Lucy, and said his goodbyes by blowing raspberries into her belly. A few feet away, Helen kissed Dylan goodbye. Her boyfriend had more in mind.

  “Remember to put her to bed by seven and don’t let her nap more than an hour. She can have two Swiss Rolls, max, after dinner.” Dylan held Helen’s cheeks captive as he went over his list. “And most important, story time lasts until she falls asleep. Don’t skip it, or she’ll play with her mermaids all night. She gets grumpier than you in the morning when her sleep schedule’s off. Don’t half-ass the story either. She can tell when you aren’t trying.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll follow the manifesto you put on the fridge.”

  “Remember, stick to the routine, and she’ll be fine.”

  “You’ve trained her good. We’ll be okay.”

  “Alright, I’ll stop nagging.” Dylan checked over his shoulder. Lucy still giggled under Tommy’s grandfatherly tickle-treatment. He dropped his voice to a husky whisper that sent excited tingles up Helen’s neck. “If you do good with this, I’ll let you do whatever you want to me the next time Tommy babysits.”

  “Is that a bribe or a promise?”

  “Whichever does the trick.”

  Helen smirked. “You better be ready for some chafing.”

  “If that’s all I’m getting ready for, you’re not doing enough.” Dylan winked as he let her go.

  “Alright, Pipsqueak.” Tommy handed Lucy over to her father, then took his spot in front of Helen. “It’s your turn with the Diamond Girl.”

  Dylan set Lucy down and squatted to her level. That meant it was time for one of his patented Daddy/Daughter talks. Lucy leaned in, whispering to her dad in their “secret language.” Really, it was a dialect of Welsh that Dylan’s family used with him before they died. He always went back and forth between that and English to keep the tradition alive with Lucy. Helen tried studying Welsh on and off, but she still couldn’t understand what those two told each other.

  Tommy grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her into a tight hug, holding it as he recited their usual routine. “Sit tight, stay safe. Be smart—”

  “—not stupid,” Helen finished. “You more.”

  “Always.” Tommy pulled Helen down and pecked her forehead. “You sure you want to have that talk when I get back, Hellion?”

  “I gotta know what to watch for.”

  “Get ready for a long one then.” Tommy pressed something small and wrapped in paper into Helen’s palm. “It’s a promise.”

  Helen pinched her eyebrows together as she slipped the mystery item in her jeans. “Can’t wait.”

  With everybody’s farewells out of the way, Dylan and Tommy sli
pped into the car. Helen hoisted Lucy up so the girl could watch them drive off. Lucy waved and shouted, “Bye Daddy!” over and over until the Civic turned the corner and disappeared.

  Helen settled her daughter on her hip. “Just us girls now. What do you feel like doing?”

  Lucy blinked with big, expectant green eyes.

  Helen blinked back at the toddler. Either Lucy would succeed at projecting her thoughts into her mom’s head, or give up and say something.

  Lucy’s lower lip quivered. Tears made her long lashes clumped together.

  “You’re not gonna make this easy on me, are you baby girl?”

  “I want Daddy!” Lucy wailed.

  Helen winced. “That’s a big no.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Lucy cried all morning until her lungs gave out at lunch. When Helen went to wipe away the tears and suck away the snot with a nasal aspirator, Lucy thrashed worse than a wet cat and scratched Helen about the same. The four-year-old perked up when the pizza guy knocked. It took a few seconds for her to realize the person at the door wasn’t Dylan. Hiccups and pouting followed at dinner. Helen tried putting on a steady stream of Lucy’s favorite Disney cartoons. Lucy slumped to the floor and sulked at the TV. Not even a whole ream of printer paper and a one hundred twenty count box of crayons brought her out of her mood.

  Both of them gave up during their second viewing of the one with the red-headed mermaid. Helen zoned on the couch while Lucy slouched on the floor. She slipped her thumb in her pocket, but bumped something inside. The funny gift Tommy had palmed her. Crumpled paper wrapped around something hard. It had one round end with a long shaft and plenty of sharp teeth. Some kind of key? Helen went to tug it out and get a better look.

  “Mam, movie all done,” Lucy said in an empty drone.

  “You want another one?” Helen left the key and heaved herself off their roadside sofa’s deflated cushions. “There’s Ice-Queen, Lost-Fish, Bookworm-Dates-Furry-Prince…”

  Lucy shrugged and added another listless line to the mural of scribbles on the top sheet in her stack. The fridge was filled with her watery masterpieces: blobby mermaids swimming across blue backdrops with pink and purple coral at the bottom. She drew at least three a day with Dylan around.