Jeff Jacobs, mayor of Surette, was beginning to hate his job more with each passing day. A solid twelve years of mundanity, nothing more than photo-ops and ceremonial appearances, and now he was suddenly dealing with dead animals and missing children. Well, missing child. A missing child. Not even a child from the area, originally, a veritable stranger to the town, one probably taken by his own father (that was how these things usually went, when families weren't together). It was what Jeff was inclined to assume, anyhow. With a mother like that, questionable background to say the least, it was probably better for the kid if he were with his father.

It was what Jeff was telling himself and what his sergeant had verbally agreed, and yet . . . if it'd been just the boy . . .

But then there was that damned animal, too. Truth be told, that lamb strung up back of the St. James's place had some rather sinister overtones, and Jeff didn't like them. He didn't like them one bit. Something about the incident echoed stories of years past. Why, he hadn't been so young a man two decades ago when the whole ordeal with the St. James brood had gone down. He'd been somewhere around twenty-six, working two jobs, trying to make ends meet to support his wife and freshly birthed kid. Everything had gone to shit for that family, what with the disappearances and deaths, mostly attributed to that daughter of theirs who, as far as he knew, was still in prison. Whole town said Kim St. James had murdered her brother and, presumably, her sister. She'd conveniently confessed to the first crime, and the jury had noted that if she could do something so heinous as chopping up her brother, she could just as likely be capable of chopping up her little sister. That poor missing girl's body had never been found, though; rumor still held that her remains had been fed to the alligators.

Little boy missing now—well, that was completely different. Kid had no connection to the town whatsoever. And yet . . .

Godammit, if it hadn't been for that lamb!

Could be a teen prank, Sargeant Robichaux had suggested. Some teen who knew something of the town's history (though so few did, these days, even with unlimited information at their disposal). Young people had no sense of reverence for the past, not with all the new bits of technology and online excitements thrown into their faces at every passing turn. They couldn't have cared less about where they'd come from. Why, when he'd grown up, his parents had made sure to tell him all about his grandmas and grandpas, how long they'd been in Surette (forever), who'd worked what jobs and married whom. And in school he'd learned about the town's founding. Did they still teach about it anymore? Probably not. Everything was going global. Educate the kids on climate and international trade but forget about the stuff right here at home. Jeff wasn't an old man, yet, not by any stretch, and yet even he bemoaned the changing generational interests. His childhood memories consisted of biking the neighborhood and running wild, climbing trees and exploring the bayou as far as he and his friends dared, catching crawfish and trick-or-treating in roving gangs, causing a ruckus at the pool during the summer months, half-assing his way through school, and eagerly awaiting the release of Sonic the Hedgehog for his SEGA. What'd these kids now, do? Always taking pictures of themselves, videos, posting and talking and scrolling in chats and socials. Sort of thing was tearing apart families.

He saw it in his own people: the twenty-four-year-old he couldn't get out of his gaming basement and the teenaged daughter who'd moved out with her mother when his ex-wife had divorced him two years prior for some man she'd met on one of her own socials.

Ah, well. Such was life.

A knock at the door startled him from his ponderings, and an older woman with a penchant for too much makeup popped her head around the frame. "Corey is here, from the paper. Wants to talk. Is it a good time?"

Jeff rolled his eyes, sat back in his chair, sighed. "It's never a good time for that asshole. But go on and send him in. Won't leave me alone, otherwise."

In the thirty or so seconds he had to prepare for the reporter's appearance, Jeff tipped a bit of whiskey out of a flask and into his coffee. He was just returning the evidence into a drawer when a man barely pushing thirty and bedecked in black circular glasses, a bowtie, and a vest popped through the door looking entirely too chipper. Jeff found it impossible not to wrinkle his nose at Corey's visage. Why'd the idiot feel so inclined to dress the part? The Surette Gazette wasn't anything particularly sophisticated, reported on local happenings, which were largely boring save for the occasional neighborhood dog getting eaten by an alligator.

"What's up, Jeff?"

"Corey."

"Mind if I sit?"

Jeff grudgingly waved a hand at one of the two chairs across his desk.

"Got something weird going on, here, don't we?"

Corey reeked of excitement. Jeff placed his elbows on the arms of his chair, clasped his hands across his chest, leaned back. "Don't know about that. Seems pretty cut-and-dry."

"You serious? Missing kid . . . dead goat . . . sounds a hell of a lot like twenty years ago."

"Lamb."

"What?"

"It was a lamb," Jeff muttered. "Not a goat."

Blinking a blank stare at the man across from him, Corey faltered slightly in his enthusiasm before picking it back up again. "Lamb. Right. You wanna tell me what you think about it?"

"Not really."

Understanding flickered across Corey's face. He dropped the kid-on-Christmas façade. "People are talking, Jeff. They're going to talk about all the wrong things unless you set them straight. I'd hate for there to be more trouble for you just because you don't like me."

"Oh you'd hate that, would you?"

Corey narrowed his eyes, smile placid though quivering slightly. "Just trying to help us both out."

For a tense moment, Jeff held the other man's gaze, retaining his own iron-on grin. Then he sat up straight and leaned over onto his desk. "How long have you lived here, Corey?"

"Don't see why that ma—"

"How long?"

"Six years. You know that."

"And what else I know is that there's history, here—a history that you neither know nor respect. People sure as snit are talking; they're always talking. But their talk don't mean nothing to me, and they're going to keep doing it whether I try to set them straight or not." Jeff rose, loomed over the reporter. "There is no straight, here, not in Surette, and if you'd had your roots in this town, you'd know it."

Corey flicked a thin tongue over his thin lips. He said nothing for a moment, as if he were calculating whether or not he wanted to risk pissing Jeff off any more than he already had. "Well," he said at last, making the decision to salvage his pride, "if you change your mind, you know how to find me." He rose, feeling immediately emboldened as he did so; he might've been slimmer than Jeff, but he was also taller, and standing reminded him of that. "Corey's Stories always hit the mark," he added chipperly.

"Fuck Corey's Stories," Jeff growled, extinguishing the light that'd begun to glow once more on his conversant's face.

Suddenly, a woman's voice called out from somewhere beyond the office—the same woman who'd led Corey in—but whatever heads-up she'd been attempting became futile when another man, dressed collar-to-shoe in black, burst into the room, nearly trampling the reporter.

"My apologies," the priest mumbled, regaining the footing he'd momentarily lost and brushing off the vest of the man he'd stumbled into. "I'm in something of a hurry."

Rather than scold or question, Corey eyed the pastor with the full curiosity for which he was known (and often despised). Jeff caught wind of the situation and rounded his desk, hurried a reluctant Corey out the door, shutting it behind him. Alone with the priest, he stood with his back to the wall, his nostrils twitching expectantly.

Father Hugh, for his part, returned the scrutiny full-force, the penetrative gaze of the religious his most powerful weapon.

"Is it so bad you've come to get me praying?" the mayor asked in a low voice, unsure whether he should laugh or worry.

Father Hugh scratched his trim, white-streaked beard. "What have you got?"

Jeff sought the answer by darting his eyes about the room.

"To drink," the priest added. "I need something strong before we have this conversation."

The request cheered Jeff. "Didn't realize you imbibe, Father."

"I'm Catholic, not Baptist."

"Mmhm." The mayor raised his eyebrows, moved back to his desk chair, said as he retrieved his flask from within a drawer, "Wouldn't know. I'm an Atheist." He unscrewed the lid and offered it to Father, who neglected to return it after taking a hearty gulp. Jeff pressed his mouth into a line, pulling his thin face into something of a square. Then he settled back down into his chair and waved the priest toward the same one Corey had recently vacated. "Well, give me what you've got."

Father Hugh regarded Jeff Jacobs with a straight face, glad he'd learned long ago how to dissemble his true feelings. "You weren't around the last time I had this conversation," he began, thumb rubbing the flask he held.

"No, no. That would've been . . . Beaumont? Or . . . no. Not Beaumont. He was before my time, but not that far back, was it? Maybe—"

"Doesn't matter. It wasn't you. So what I'm going to say to you, I've said before. It wasn't a pleasant conversation then, and it won't be a pleasant conversation now, but I need you to promise me you'll listen or things will get a hell of a lot worse than they already are."

Jeff raised his eyebrows at the swear. He'd casually known Father Hugh his entire life, never being any sort of churchgoer, but clearly he'd had the wrong impression of the man. He waved a hand, indicating permission for his guest to continue.

"You've thought of the St. Jameses, no doubt, with this new missing boy, the lamb."

The mayor nodded.

"Everything that happened twenty years ago, it's going to happen again. It's cyclical. I was hoping it wouldn't be, hoped it was a one-time recurrence. But now, with this . . ."

"What do you mean, cyclical?"

"The LeBlanc family, forty years ago. You surely don't remember it, but you must've heard the stories, growing up here."

"Sure, sure, but—"

"I had hoped," Father Hugh spoke over Jeff, "that the LeBlancs and the St. Jameses were coincidental. Twenty years apart—I'd thought maybe . . . but no. Not now. It's another twenty years, and I can't say it wasn't on my mind, that this anniversary meant something more was set to happen."

The mayor shook his head, torn between letting Father speak and pushing to be listened to. "And even before the LeBlancs, back in the sixties, there was another couple of kids that went missing."

Father Hugh lit up slightly, a humored expression replacing his austerity. "Oh, so you know about the Hanover children?"

"Course. That would've been before your time here. But as I was telling ol' Corey's Stories, growing up here in Surette, you know things. So whatever it is you think you understand better than me, Father, you probably don't. I know how involved you tried to be back when Lindell and Glory went through all their tragedies with their kids. I know you've experienced first-hand the Surette grisgris, as we like to call it. Sure, everyone knows you've got the scars to show that bullet David LeBlanc put in your chest all that time ago. Live here your whole life, you know things."

"And yet," Father Hugh reminded him, "I've been here longer than you."

Jeff tipped his head to one side. "In years, Father, but you aren't of Surette. Not like most of the rest of us."

The priest narrowed his lids ever so slightly, took a gulp from the flask before setting it down on the desk, returning it to Jeff. "This missing boy, he wasn't of Surette either."

"No . . . no he was not."

"His family isn't from here."

"Not so far as I know."

Father Hugh inhaled long and deep. Patience. He'd need patience with this man. Over the years, he'd not paid much attention to Jeffrey Jacobs, not even when he'd become mayor. He didn't relish the thought of trying to work with the man, now, especially if Jacobs was going to continue his condescension. Idiots, however, could be useful, even if they were obnoxious. "I've taken the lamb."

The words settled on Jeff, registered. "What do you mean, you took it?"

"To the church. It's a holy artifact. I'll need to sanctify it and bury it."

"Like hell—you talk to Sargeant Robichaux? He let you take—"

"Yes, he did. I've known Joe since he was small; his family are faithful attendees at St. Basilio's."

"Still, Father, I'm going to have to—"

"The Sargeant agrees with me. He's taken what he needs from the scene. We've worked it all out."

"Now hold on a minute, Father! I haven't even spoken with Joe, yet! The damn thing was found just yesterday, and I haven't had a chance—"

"It's not your concern." Marion Hugh interlaced his fingers on his lap, calm as could be. His peaked features retained a youthfulness, in spite of his six decades of life. The gleam in his eye, the wiriness of his frame encouraged the image. "This is the difficult part of the conversation, Jeff. I need you to understand that this is out of your hands. It's not something with which you need concern yourself. You did right in sending that young reporter out; if he comes back, I need you to direct him to me."

Jeff Jacobs pounded a fist on his desk and, for the second time that morning, rose in frustration. "This is my town, Father, and I won't have anyone telling me I can't do as I see fit in running it! If I want to talk to reporters, I'll damn well do it, and I expect you to back yourself out of what should be my business and the business of every lifelong resident of this town!"

Slowly, Father Hugh unseated himself. He glanced past the mayor and out the window, noting that the persistent rain seemed to have temporarily let up; it would surely return. "I thought you'd feel that way, Jeff," Marion said, tapping a finger on the desk and looking down at the man's sloppy display of notebooks and napkins and pens before lifting his gaze to meet the mayor's. "That's why I have to tell you that if you choose to interrupt my work, I will bring down the wrath of God and His dominions to burn the very flesh off of you and your children's faces. You think God's angels are benevolent spirits? You'd be terribly wrong. His powers and principalities, his thrones—they're destroyers, and they will utterly crucify you with tortures of which not even the demons of hell could dream. There will be no mercy for your soul after I curse it, and Atheist or not, Jeffrey, the torments of hell can be felt here on Earth as potently as in the eternal."

With a scintillating smile, a twinkle in his eyes, Father Hugh tapped the desk once more, then left the mayor to stew in shock and the realization that he would have, after all, preferred to have indulged Corey with an interview.