I See You

Chapter One

"So I wonder if my Granny has any meatloaf left from last night."

Detective Cody Phillips glanced at his buddy as they slid into the booth at their favorite diner. Tony Breaux was a bottomless pit when it came to food. It was a wonder the guy didn't weigh five hundred pounds. "I don't know man." He shook his head and drummed his fingernails on the table as he watched their server headed toward them. "I guess you could always call her and ask her," he offered as he waited for Tony to settle in.

"Oh and maybe a chocolate cake? Granny makes the best damn cakes!" He moaned softly and dropped his jacket in the seat beside him.

Cody snorted. They were literally about to have food. "Yeah, she does," he agreed. Ms Harriet did make the best chocolate cakes. She'd made his birthday cake the last time the day had come around. It wasn't the only one he'd had, but it had been the tastiest one seeing how his mom had been on a  health food kick. He'd had a vegan caraway chocolate cake. Yum! Thankfully she'd returned to the land of processed food. He'd really missed her apple fritters. Truly food of the Gods!

"I might have to do that," Tony said.

The waitress stopped and handed them both a menu, took their drink orders and sashayed away.

"I had a strange thing happen the other night." He scrolled through his social media for a second, pausing to reply, before continuing. "I had a hella bad nightmare."

Cody glanced at his buddy as they both studied their menu. "Yeah?"

"I was having this amazing dream that I was having a threesome with those twins from that bar downtown, you know the ones? Allie and her fine as hell sister Sandy, and a huge bowl of chocolate pudding, anyway we're just getting started and everything goes dark and this huge, swirling black mass is standing by my bed screaming at me. Fucker had blue purple eyes. Creepy as hell."
He frowned and paused in the hunt for an entree. "A black mass?"

Tony nodded. "Yeah, crazy shit man. I couldn't understand what it was saying, but whatever it was, it was definitely pissed off." He shook his head. "That is the last time I have gas station sushi," he shuddered.

"I told you to stop eating that shit, Tony," Cody said, shaking his head, all the while his mind was racing.

Tony nodded. "I know but I was in a hurry," he dipped a chip into the salsa. "Man I miss my normal dream where women seduce me into letting them pay their rent with their body."

Cody nodded and forced a laugh. If only Tony knew that more than likely it was a warning of some kind, and considering what his favorite side hustle was, it was a really good chance that he'd formed an attachment during one of their cases.

Either way Cody filed the thought away for later. He'd have his mom take a look into it for him.

And even more importantly, it looked like they were going to have to have the talk again. How many times had he told the guy to stay away from the cemetery?

Black masses weren't something to play around with. Well, it wasn't if you were most people, but Tony along with their mutual buddy Aaron studied this type of thing. Tony's grandmother jokingly called them the Spook Squad, but honestly the name made him think about the movie Ghostbusters or something. It didn't sound professional when you thought about it. And eventually he knew Tony and Aaron wanted to be able to make an actual career out of it.