by Declan Finn
I grimaced. “Come on, guys. We’re going to visit VP Herbert West of Matchett Industries. And we’re going to kick down his door and ask him some questions.”
The three of us cut along the yard to the parking lot. We were in the car and moving in a matter of minutes. Pearson was on the phone to the Vatican, informing his boss of the situation at Dunwich University. Alex checked his magazine load out and patted himself down as though he had forgotten a weapon.
I focused on the road ahead and paid no attention to anything in my way.
I was pissed.
I was angry because they had held an entire campus full of student hostage to dark forces. If I hadn’t come along, they would have all probably been thrown into Hell or sacrificed, or possessed for the rest of their life, spreading misery and living in Hell on Earth.
I was angry because they had decided to use my compassion for others as a way to “disarm” me and the ring.
I was angry because God is not mocked. And that was Whateley’s day job.
My drive through Massachusetts was a blur. I was so aggressive, even local drivers got out of my way.
I pulled up to the address at eleven o’clock in the morning. I opened the door before I turned off the engine. I swung outside and hopped over the hood of the car. I armored up before I even reached the stairs, and I kicked the door in. I didn’t even bother drawing my gun. I felt like hitting something, and I hoped that I was going to find a supernatural idiot ready to attack me.
I found “Vice President for Human Resources Herbert West” standing in his living room. He wore a raincoat long enough to cover a multitude of sins. He was tall, long and lanky. His was a bald Haitian with long, spider-like fingers and a huge, wide grin. He spread his spindly arms wide in greeting.
“Detective!” he cried out in his lyrical accent. “I’m so glad you found me! I was just trying to look up your number, but no one seems to know it down in New York anymore.”
Alex charged in right next to me. He cursed and drew his gun. “Damn it! Not again!”
Pearson jogged up next to Alex. He looked to “Herbert West,” then back to Alex. “Sorry, haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Officially,” he said, “I am VP for HR Herbert West.”
I finished for him. “He’s really a Voodoo necromancer named Bokor Baracus.”
16 Deal with the Devil … But Only at Gunpoint
I armored down my helmet but left the rest of the armor active. I didn’t want to get caught flat-footed by Bokor Baracus. Never again. He had tried to kill me more often than I could count and had been at least partially responsible for every single time something supernatural had tried to kill me. Even if he wasn’t directly involved, he had played a major supporting role that had enabled the threat to happen in the first place. He was a mystical mercenary. As part of keeping himself alive against all odds, Baracus was obligated to help his fellow demon-worshipers. In Germany, they had made the mistake of “letting the check bounce”—a phrase I didn’t want to inquire too closely into.
Alex had his gun level with Baracus’ head but reached for another saint card. “What the Hell is he talking about, Tommy? Why would he try to call you?”
Baracus smiled at Alex, as though he were late to the conversation. “As I have told your partner once before, Detective Packard, I am a mercenary. I work for the side of evil because they pay better. However, the last thing I want is for an actual end to the conflict of good and evil. Hell wins, I have earned pride of place … in Hell. Oh, yay. Heaven wins? Hell keeps me forever. And they do not reward failure, no matter how many years of loyal service one has given.”
Alex paused for a moment, frowned, shrugged, and glanced at me. “It makes sense. After a fashion.”
I nodded slowly. I was tempted to reach for my gun or test the Soul Ring and its charge. “And what of your current employers?”
Baracus spit on his floor—a nice Persian carpet, so Baracus was not happy. “Bah! I have recently begun to believe that the scope of my consultation with Mister Matchett is somewhat wider than I have contractually agreed to.”
Alex blinked hard, confused by the legalese, and even more thrown by Baracus using it.
Packard: “What the hell…?”
Baracus gave a deep, long-suffering sigh. “I believe that Matchett is going to go full Gozer. He may even be trying to prompt the End of Days.”
Father Pearson arched a brow. “Funny. I don’t recall a CEO being mentioned in Revelations.”
Baracus cocked his head at the priest, as though wondering if he was truly serious. “Matchett needs a legion of demons. Can you imagine something else he would need it for?”
Alex’s eyes narrowed and snarked, “How about to take over New York City?”
Baracus looked like he was going to reciprocate the snark but paused and shook his head. “No. While I understand what you mean, Matchett is old. He is dying. I see it in his frail form daily. His aura fades. He did not exchange his soul for more life but for power.”
Pearson circled around to the right. He wanted to be in a flanking position if he needed to be. “Unlike you?”
Baracus gave a rich, deep belly laugh and bowed. “Guilty, me lord. I am an impatient man who desires to live until the stars go cold. I may even get to a confessional first if the inclination strikes me.” His smile faded. “But Matchett desires to fulfill his master’s wishes before the end. Perhaps he thinks to find a more exalted place in Hell.”
I raised my own brows. While Baracus had turned on his German employers for a bounced check, all he had done back then was offer me a location—Germany. This sounded more like he was offering direct help. “Won’t your Friends on the Other Side dislike you turning on Matchett like this?”
Baracus’ eyes narrowed. “He didn’t tell me all of his plans. This means that he is in violation of our contract. Hell takes its contract violations seriously. We have the lawyers to prove it. Though we are allowed to enforce our own violations. Hell is big on the self-made men. They tend to worship their creators.”
I nodded to the large armchair in the center of the living room. “How about you sit down, and you tell us what exactly you have done?”
Baracus gave a Gallic shrug and threw himself into his chair. “Where shall I begin?”
“How did they contact you?”
Baracus smiled broadly. “All rich people know each other, Detective. At least, many do. They are a small network of people. If you were to guess, what would you say?”
I winced, not liking the implications. “Matchett gave to the Women’s Health Corps.”
Alex scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Dear God, them again. What did they do? Loan you out for a weekend? Then you got a permanent job with him after New York fell apart?”
Baracus’ smile this time was more subdued and tight-lipped. “How droll, Detective Packard. However, there was more of a gap than that. Matchett needed a book or two to add to his collection.” Baracus looked at me a moment and studied me. His smile lengthened a little. “I was told that someone broke into Matchett’s office last night. I was also told that the intruder was dismembered, disembowled, and devoured. That wouldn’t happen to have been you, would it, Detective Nolan?”
My voice stayed flat and neutral. “I was there.”
He nodded deeply, happy to be correct. “Then you saw his collection of books. The library is quite extensive. After New York … fell apart, as Detective Packard puts it, I needed another employer to support my lifestyle. So Matchett put me in touch with friends of his. More wealthy people. More self-made men.”
I sighed deeply. I had so wanted to never hear their names again. “Toynbee and Fowler, in London. That’s how they consulted you on the Soul Stone.”
Packard held up a hand. “Hold on. You were there, too? Is there anything in the world you’re not attached to?”
Baracus glanced at me, amused. “You did not tell him that I was alive? Such an oversight. I feel slighted.”
I
shrugged. “I wanted Alex to sleep at night.”
Alex opened his mouth and paused. He thought about how long ago London had been, figured out that the knowledge of Baracus being alive would have cost him nearly six months’ sleep, and let out a puff of air. “Yeah. You’re right. It would have sucked.”
Well, that went better than expected.
Baracus smirked, then shrugged. He apparently thought the same thing. “I went to the Fowlers, worked for them. Kozbar had me work on a side job Germany… then his check bounced. I suppose he should be fortunate that you got to him first. But after London, I came back here and worked for Matchett. He wanted demons. He wanted possession. He wanted his entire company possessed. He has a power base at Dunwich University.”
Alex laughed. “He had a power base at the university. Tommy got it.”
Baracus blinked. He looked at my face, then my armor, then locked onto my ring. He cocked his head to the side like a velociraptor eyeing prey. “Ah. You have a part of the Soul Stone. That’s good. It will be useful in the battles ahead. I …” He drifted off, squinting at the ring. “Purging the university emptied it out, hasn’t it?” He leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and growled in frustration. “Now I know why they wanted a place of power independent of the possessions and the black mass.”
“You’ve done your job,” Pearson said. “Why not leave?”
Baracus shrugged. “Matchett wanted me to stay. Be on retainer. It was little enough. And the money was right. At worst, I think he wanted me around to ride herd on the possessed and make sure they didn’t get out of hand.”
That sounded right. “One thing. You said you were going to try to call me. What prompted the call? You’ve been here for months. You performed the black mass months ago. What made you want to contact me now?”
The bokor sighed and wiped his brow, even though I didn’t see any sweat there. I hadn’t thought before then he had a nervous habit. “It is a long and complicated process. And while I casually stated that there could only be one purpose for the demons, I may have exaggerated. A little.” He looked around. No one believed him, but we wanted him to keep going. “When you know as much as I do, there is a list of things that Matchett could do with this many possessed. But time has passed. Months have passed. Certain things need certain conditions to happen before they can be executed. Many of them have passed. An equinox. A solstice. There are very few things left. Unless it is something I cannot even begin to imagine. And I have an excellent imagination, detective.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to see to his heart. Then again, I presume he has one. Bad mistake. “But I ask again. Why today?”
The bokor raised his eyebrows and spread his hands in a welcoming gesture. “Because, Detective! They have let the entire company have the day off. Across the entire country. Everyone has been told to stay home. Including security. So whatever they want to do, they want to do it today.”
I had several thoughts at once.
If they shut down the company, all of the possessed will be free to roam. They may not even gather at the building.
Why would they gather at the building? They might as well be a hive mind.
If there’s no security, we can break in.
We can destroy the books.
– but there’s no security, and I broke in last night. Would they have really left the library there intact?
Which means it’s probably at Matchett’s house.
They’re going to pull the trigger on their plan today. Maybe even right now. The end of the world could have started, and my family is out there driving in it.
But who knows what’s going on? Matchett.
Who can tell us how to stop it? Matchett.
I turned to Bokor Baracus. “Okay. Fine. Let’s play. What do we have to do to find out what’s going on? You must need us for something. Otherwise, you would have done it yourself.”
Say Matchett. Say Matchett so I know I can trust you to the next step.
“Why, to George Matchett’s house, of course. He’s the only one who would know everything. Unless you can interrogate a demon.”
I turned to Father Pearson. “What about the package?”
Baracus and Packard turned toward me.
“Package?” Baracus asked.
Packard frowned. “What package?”
I smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Father?”
Pearson smiled sheepishly. “I only got a text about it a little while ago. The plane was late. It didn’t take off until about six o’clock in the morning, our time.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And you said it was a nine-hour flight. I hope the apocalypse can wait until three in the afternoon.”
17 House in the Mist
Every estate in an Agatha Christie story, except for the occasional quirk relevant to the plot, was essentially the same. Each mansion was more like a castle. They all had reading rooms, libraries, foyers, parlors, game rooms, a den, and several wings. The estate grounds were wide and luxurious, spanning acres. The hedges were all neatly-shaped, and the lawns neatly mowed.
George Matchett, however, had lawn care HP Lovecraft would have loved. Vines overgrew the bushes and fell out of them in tangles like tentacles. The vines even overgrew the front wall and the massive iron fence at the front gate. The sculpted bushes on the lawn were not cute cuddly animals or artistically pretty objects—they were hideous creatures from beneath the sea. The most normal-looking animals were lobsters, crabs, and starfish. Some of the others looked like warped, mutated sea creatures with claws and fangs. Others still looked like deformed plant versions of the Serpent men I’d fought for the last 24 hours.
Then there was a rhino thrown in there – possibly because the plant sculptors had run out of ideas.
The walkways between the lawns were cracked and broken. The driveway came in through a side gate in the wall, up to the front door, then back into the garage.
The security was, of course, what you would expect from a multi-billionaire. There was an arsenal on site. The guns they owned were banned by Massachusetts state law, but Matchett had paid his way around the laws. His guards hadn’t come into conflict with the law often, since the estate signs warned away all trespassers as far as the road. The few times anyone had come out here were decades ago, when one or two girlfriends of the billionaire had gotten their hands on a phone and dialed 9-1-1, crying for help. When the police arrived, there were supposedly no girlfriends and no phone call. Later, a girl from the nearest city would be reported as a “runaway,” complete with a neat, typed note to the family.
Ten guards in teams of two patrolled the front of the house. There were twenty guards on each side of the house, also patrolling in twos. They were armed with MP-5 sub-machine guns. Mister Matchett, of course, was all in support of gun control. Obviously, in this case, that meant that his guards hit what they aimed for.
Thankfully, in the back of the house, there were only two guards. Most people would be forgiven for thinking this was a shocking oversight. However, the back yard terminated in a five-hundred-foot drop into the ocean at high tide and jagged rocks at low tide. WiFi cameras had been placed all over the mountainside in order to alert the guards to any climbers. They rotated back and forth, more than enough time to catch anyone as they climbed.
However, we weren’t going to climb.
During his time working with George Matchett, Bokor Baracus had been allowed to borrow the company boat. It comfortably fit six … or uncomfortably sat a priest, two cops, and a bokor.
As we approached the house around noon, clouds had gathered in. The day was still pleasant, but deeply gray and overcast. It felt like a day to go to the beach. It didn’t look like a day to go out of the house if you looked at the sky. The meteorologists at Google, Yahoo, Brave, DuckDuckGo and the Weather channel all agreed that the day was going to be sunny, and all of the clouds were going to burn off.
However, as the water churned and the seas shook the boat to and fro, we didn’
t quite believe it. The winds had stayed at “easy breeze.”
We parked the boat as close to the edge of the water as we could. The next part was all on me. More specifically, on God. There was only one way we could get up there fast enough to avoid the cameras, and it wasn’t by my free-form rock climbing in armor.
I armored up, and Pearson handed me the grappling hook. The best plan we had was for me to levitate straight up with the three of them already on the rope. I would pull them all up behind me, hook the grapnel in the cliff’s edge, then tangle with the guards while they climbed the rest of the way.
The only prayer I could think of for the occasion was to Saint Joseph of Cupertino, the levitating patron saint of pilots. After all, it worked when I had jumped out of a tower before it exploded.
I closed my eyes, held fast to the rope, and prayed.
Dear ecstatic Conventual Saint who patiently bore calumnies, your secret was Christ the crucified Savior. Who said: “When I will be lifted up, I will draw all people to myself.” You were always spiritually lifted up. Give aviators courage and protection and may they always keep in mind your greatly uplifting example.
Amen.
I opened my eyes and found myself already up in the air, climbing rapidly to the cliffs.
Then I disappeared into the mists.
Mists? There weren’t any mists down below.
The mists covered everything, even though there was no logical reason for them to be there. A quick check on the sensors of the armor told me that the mist terminated at the border of the property.
Magical mists. Great.
The display shifted on the helmet to allow me to see what I was doing.
The cliff edge was right in front of me.
