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, but a veritable stranger to the town—that was the weird part. He'd have thought maybe it was the past repeating itself if not for that. Would've figured things were happening for a reason but couldn't help wondering whether this particular boy had actually been kidnapped, like, properly taken by some creeper, and the timing was just coincidence, even if the rumor rumblings were running different.

But then there'd been that message, too. Truth be told, that whole "blood of the lamb" nonsense had some familiarly sinister overtones, and Jeff didn't like them. He didn't like them one bit. 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, though it wasn't what the whole town thought. 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; neither had the murder weapon. And of course, there'd been the subsequent deaths, impossible to attribute to Kim.

The little boy missing now, though—well, Jeff Jacobs should've known better, shouldn't have run for re-election the last time around, but dammit if he didn't appreciate the title.

Could be a teen prank, Police Chief 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 through her DM's.

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 foundation 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 to a drawer when a man barely pushing thirty and bedecked in black circular glasses, a bowtie, and a crisp button-down 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 reptile encounter or a rogue nutria building a burrow where it shouldn't.

"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 . . . weird messages—"

"Says who?"

"What?"

"Who said weird messages? I got nothing about messages," Jeff muttered, wondering, How the hell'd that get out? Robichaux leaking information?

Blinking blanks at the man across from him, Corey faltered slightly in his enthusiasm. "Right . . ."

The men entered a silent eye duel, but Jeff was determined not to add to Corey's intelligence. The more he assessed the other, the more he assured himself that the actual words of the message hadn't been revealed to him.

At length, the reporter caved. "So, you wanna tell me what you think about it?"

"Not really."

"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. Are you going to call in the feds, you think? This missing kid hasn't been found—Robichaux feel out of his league, here?"

Jeff sat up and leaned over onto his desk. "How long have you lived here, Corey?"

"Don't see why that ma—"

"How long?"

"Six years."

"S'what I thought. There's history, here—a history that you neither know nor respect. People sure as shit are talking; they're always talking. 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 one needs to be set straight, here, except for you, 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 conceded at last, deciding to salvage his pride, "if you change your mind, you know how to find me." He rose, 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 gripping the upper arms of the man he'd stumbled into in order to steady him as well. "I'm in something of a hurry."

Rather than scold or question, Corey eyed the priest 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 none too gently behind him. Alone with the priest, he stood with his back to the wall, his nostrils twitching expectantly.

Father Becerra, 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.

Renato scratched his trim, white-threaded 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 a Nihilist. Shouldn't surprise you." 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 Becerra 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 was unpalatable then, and it might be as much now, but I need you to listen or things will be a hell of a lot more difficult for all of us."

The mayor raised his eyebrows at the swear. He'd casually known Father Becerra his entire life, but he'd never had to converse in private with him. The priest's severity was unsettling, but Jeff gesticulated permission for his guest to continue.

"The lamb's been found."

Jeff's bottom lip dropped, though his chin remained implacable.

"It's going to happen again, what happened twenty years ago. It's cyclical. I know you townspeople tend to forget, but—"

"Where was it?"

"The lamb? Back of the St. Jameses' house. Strung up a tree. Glory came to get me the minute she saw it. Her husband found one, a long time ago, after their daughter went missing, and then the LeBlanc family, forty years back, two lambs on their doorstep after the twins . . . I know it's difficult to remember, that things fade, but you must—"

"I do remember some things, thank you very much. Jack LeBlanc and I were buddies for a while, and those were his cousins, his uncle and aunt."

"If I'm being honest," Father Becerra spoke over Jeff, ignoring his recollections, "I had hoped that someone else would be in your position by now. I'm not entirely sure you'll be competent in a crisis."

"Well now, hold on there, Father! I might not exactly want to deal with all this, but—"

"The St. Jameses, the LeBlancs, and before them, the Hanover boy—his mother was a LeBlanc—and before them, another St. James child, whose father would've been a great uncle to Lindell." Father Becerra emerged from the enclosure of his reveries. "You get the idea?"

"Course. 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 Glory went through all those tragedies with her 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 Dave put in your chest all that time ago. Live here your whole life, you know things."

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

Jeff tipped his head to one side. "In years, Father, maybe. But you got no people here, no roots. We've had many a priest come and go. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last."

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 doesn't seem to have any roots here, either."

"No . . . and I admit that does confound me."

"His family isn't from here."

"Not so far as I know."

Father Becerra 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 persuaded, 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 religious artifact. I'll need to sanctify it and bury it."

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

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

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

"Won't be necessary. The chief has 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 Alan, yet! You just told me about the damn animal and I haven't had a chance—"

"It's not your concern." Renato 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 trouble yourself. You did right in sending that reporter out. Your only job, now, is to stem the flow of speculation."

Jeff Jacobs pounded a closed fist on his desk. "Goddamn this town and its historical guilt! You know I don't believe in that sort of thing, Father—holding people responsible for what their ancestors did."

Slowly, Renato unseated himself as well, tapped a finger on the desk. He glanced past the mayor and out the window, noting that the persistent rain seemed to have temporarily let up; it would surely return. "Well, it doesn't matter what you think, does it? You might not believe in historical guilt, but someone else sure as hell did, and all we who are afloat in the river can do is follow the current." With a scintillating smile, a twinkle in his eyes, Father Becerra 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.