Surrender the Dark by Banks L. A

Author:Banks, L. A. [Banks, L. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-28T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

A thud came from the window and Denise Jackson turned away from her afternoon soap opera to stare at the closed blinds. Annoyed, she stood and went to the kitchen and hurried to the cabinets as another thud sounded at her back door. Reaching up with effort, she pulled down an old cookie tin from the top shelf that was heavy with the weight of her peacekeeper.

“Now y’all trying to break into my house during the day? Umph, umph, umph. Ain’t no rest for the weary, but I’ll help you find Jesus right quick, though,” she muttered, and opened the tin, taking out the old .45 that had once belonged to Roscoe.

She went to the window more angry than afraid and peeked out the kitchen curtain. “I got somethin’ for ya! Don’t think you done run up on some ole lady!”

But the next thud from the side of the house made her open the curtains wide and gasp with horror. Five dead crows were littered in her backyard, necks broken by the sheer force of hitting her house. Then she looked up to the adjacent rooftops and telephone lines behind her house and slowly laid the weapon down on the kitchen table.

A murder of crows looked back at her, silent sentries that seemed as if they were eerily waiting for her to leave the house. She hurried through the kitchen and dining room to the front window and peered through the blinds. The first thud she’d heard was a crow that had hurled itself against the window and then fallen onto the wooden porch.

“Got something for that, too,” she said quietly, and crossed herself as she hurried to the end table by the sofa.

As her hand touched the brass drawer handle, the doorbell rang. But she was on a mission and would not be dissuaded from it. She opened the drawer, ignoring the heavy pounding at her front door, and withdrew her Bible, turning to psalm 91 and preparing for war.

“Police! Open up, Ms. Jackson. We can see you in there!”

“I’m coming,” she said calmly, holding her Bible open as she went to the door and turned the latch. “Good afternoon, Officers. You here to see about these crows that done lost they minds?”

She studied the two deceptively handsome faces. One was an ebony black man, one was a white man. One had eyes the hue of bittersweet chocolate, the other had eyes the hue of the bluest sky. One wore a dark charcoal gray suit, the other wore navy blue. One pressed a gold badge to the glass of her exterior security door while she stood just inside it with the inner door cracked open.

“Detectives,” the black man said. “Homicide.”

“Uhmmm, hmmm,” she said, looking at the dead crow on her porch. “Bad sign, ain’t it?”

The two men gave each other a look.

“The dead birds. Evil’s afoot,” she affirmed. “Just like they all hanging on the lines.”

The blond detective glanced around. “There’s no birds on the lines and that’s not why we’re here, Ms.

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