Eyes to See

by Joseph Nassise

  Easy there, girl, she thought. Panicking won’t help at this point.

  But her fear caused her heart to pound frantically, and it took her much longer than she thought it would to calm herself and consider the situation rationally.

  She couldn’t use her Art to call up some light or to free herself from her bonds, for any magickal working had somatic elements that required the use of her hands to be effective.

  Which meant she was going to have to free herself the old-fashioned way, it seemed.

  First, she had to be certain she was alone. For all she knew the fetch was sitting there in the darkness, watching her. The very thought brought goose bumps to her flesh, but she knew it was a possibility and so she sat still and listened carefully.

  When no sound other than her own breathing reached her ears, she decided it was now or never.

  Her eyes had adjusted well enough at this point to use the small bit of moonlight coming in through one of the broken windows near the ceiling of the room. By its light she discovered she was in a storeroom of some kind. Various pieces of discarded furniture, some intact, some barely holding together, were stacked along one wall, while the floor around her was covered with piles of moldy paper, the air filled with that peculiar smell of old paper and rat droppings.

  Bracing her hands against the floor, she managed to get her knees underneath her. From there it was just a matter of taking it slowly and keeping her balance, until, several minutes and a handful of tries later, she stood on her own.

  Now she had to get rid of her bonds.

  By shuffling her feet forward a little bit at a time one after another, she was able to make her way over to the pile of furniture against the wall. In the dim light she picked out a metal desk that stood at the bottom of the pile and had seen better days. At some point in its long career the surface of the desk had buckled, causing one edge to split, and leaving a section of it jutting upward from the whole.

  That was going to be her ticket to freedom.

  She slowly clambered forward until she stood in front of the desk. She tested the tip of the edge with her finger, decided it was sharp enough for what she needed to do, and then got to work.

  She put her hands over the edge, brought the rope in contact with the torn and twisted edge of the desk, and then began sawing her hands back and forth, back and forth.

  It was slow going. The rope, while not exactly new, was still strong, and the fact that her feet were secured as tightly as her hands meant she slipped and fell more than once. Thankfully, none of her falls caused her serious injury.

  By the time she was finished, her hands and wrists were bloody and raw, but she considered that a small price to pay for her freedom. She rubbed her arms, easing the muscles and getting her circulation back to normal.

  When she could feel her hands well enough to make use of them, she bent over and got right to work on the knots binding her legs.

  At last she was free.

  Satisfied with her efforts so far, Denise raised one hand, her palm cupped as if holding a ball. “Illuminante!” she said, in a voice sharp with command, and a split second later a ball of bright light filled her palm, shining upon the room around her and causing her to blink several times until her eyes could adjust to the sudden light.

  She’d been right; she was in a storeroom. Besides the pile of furniture and several rows of metal filing cabinets, there were shelving units stocked full of boxes like those used to store medical records. Case numbers and what she took to be patient names were scrawled on the end of each one, a history of those who had visited the facility in the days before computerized record-keeping systems were invented. A row of windows close to the ceiling lined one wall and a single door with its own small window provided both entrance and egress from the room.

  She was just about to head for the door when the sound of approaching footfalls reached her ears.

  Denise had no idea of what had happened to Dmitri, and, who knew, maybe it was he who was approaching, come to rescue her, but she couldn’t take that chance without knowing for sure. While she hoped it was Dmitri, it could just as easily be the fetch.

  Afraid of being discovered before she was ready, Denise doused the light and then settled back into the position she’d been in when she had awakened, lying on the floor, her hands and feet clasped together as if still tightly bound.

  Except this time, between her fingers, she also held the split end of a table leg. If she was discovered, she was determined not to go down without a fight.

  Sibilant hissings and mutterings reached her ears.

  She knew that nothing human made sounds like that.

  Her heart grew cold as she realized that rescue was not at hand.

  The footsteps drew closer and then stopped, right outside the door to her room.

  A small click reached her ears, like that of a switch being thrown. Light blossomed on the other side of her closed eyelids, but Denise didn’t have the courage to look just yet. Everything counted on the fetch, if that was indeed what it was, believing she was still incapacitated.

  The light drew closer, and with it, her visitor.

  She kept her eyes tightly shut, but she could feel it there, just on the other side of the window, watching. She felt goose bumps rising on her skin again and prayed the creature wouldn’t notice, prayed they wouldn’t give her away. If it entered the room, she would fight, that much was certain, but she didn’t want to be forced to do so, not until she was ready. If she had to fight now, without a plan, she would most likely lose.

  Denise could feel its eyes upon her and she willed herself to remain still, to keep her breathing easy and unhurried, as if she were still unconscious. Don’t move, she told herself, over and over again. Don’t move.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t hold her position another moment longer, the light outside the room dimmed as the fetch turned away.

  Denise let out her breath in a long, slow stream and shifted her legs to relieve the cramp that had formed there.

  As she did, her right foot jerked just a bit too far and smacked solidly into a stack of files piled up on the floor next to her.

  They toppled over with a soft thump.

  Instantly she froze, praying the sound had not been loud enough to attract the fetch’s attention.

  But it had.

  The light outside the room suddenly flared and drew closer again.

  Denise gripped the makeshift stake tighter and reviewed her options.

  There was a rattling at the door, the click of a lock, and then a man dressed in coveralls like a maintenance worker was striding inside, headed right for her, an electric camping lantern held in one hand.

  She didn’t hesitate.

  Surging to her feet, Denise threw up her arms, pointed at the oncoming stranger and shouted, “Ventus!” as loudly as she could.

  A gale-force wind exploded into the room in response to her command. The boxes of files were swept off their shelves, flying like missiles directly at the newcomer, while the stacks of loose paper throughout the room spun up off the floor, surrounding him in a swirling vortex.

  The man opened his mouth and screamed, a high-pitched shriek of rage and frustration that never could have been issued from a human throat. In its anger she could see its face begin to twitch and change, sliding from one set of features to another as it batted at the objects flying in its face.

  Through the swirling chaos she could see that the path to the door was unguarded as the fetch stumbled to the side from the pressure of her attack.

  Denise saw her chance.

  Now! she thought.

  She dashed for the door, her hands up to help keep the flying debris away from her face, hoping to get out into the hallway before the fetch could recover from the whirlwind surrounding it.

  She’d gone only a few steps when something smashed into her shins and swept her feet out from under her. She struck the floor heavily, smacking her head against the concrete hard enough to disrupt he
r concentration and make her cry out in pain.

  Fear kept her moving though, forced her to roll over as quickly as she could and to glance backward, knowing she needed to keep the fetch in sight. The light was no longer steady but was swinging back and forth across the room, and a moment later she saw why. The lantern was rolling on the floor by her feet, having apparently been hurled in her direction to stop her flight.

  The fall hadn’t done her much physical damage, but it had broken her concentration and that was enough to disrupt her focus. As a result, the whirlwind had slowed considerably. Even as she watched, the fetch forced its way through the swirling barrier and leapt at her.

  It landed practically on top of her, and in the shifting light its face took on a particularly demonic hue. She could see that its flesh was covered with hundreds of tiny cuts thanks to all the flying paper, but that hadn’t seemed to slow it down any. It bent over her and hissed its fury.

  “Fuck you, asshole!” she snarled in return, and before it could do anything else, she kicked it square in the face with the heel of one foot.

  The fetch went over backward.

  Denise didn’t wait around, twisting over and propelling herself up and forward with her hands and feet, headed for the door …

  A hand seized her ankle in a vicelike grip. Almost immediately she began to slide backward as the fetch reeled her in like a fish on a hook.

  “No!” she screamed. “No!”

  With her free leg she kicked at the hand holding her, trying to break the fetch’s hold, but it was no use. It pulled her closer and then rose to its feet, still holding her leg. It spun in place and flung her away toward the far side of the room with one mighty heave of its arms.

  Denise flew through the air and slammed against the far wall, knocking the breath from her lungs. She fully expected it to leap after her and slaughter her where she lay, so it was with great surprise that she watched the fetch dash across the room in the other direction, disappearing out the door and slamming it closed once more behind it.

  She was still a prisoner.

  But, she thought, as dizziness and exhaustion claimed her, at least she was still alive. And that meant she wouldn’t remain a prisoner for long.

  45

  NOW

  Officer Dietrich was a gibbering wreck by the time we dumped him on a side street twenty minutes later. With the link between us dissipated, I was all but blind once more, so Dmitri took the wheel.

  We dumped the stolen car shortly thereafter, knowing that soon there would be cops all over the streets looking for it. Dmitri left the engine running and the doors unlocked, trusting that some enterprising individual would ’ jack it within minutes after we left the scene. If we were lucky, the cops would be too busy chasing the car to realize that we’d gotten away.

  We took the subway back to where Dmitri had parked Denise’s Charger, and then we drove calmly out of the city, leaving a hornet’s nest of activity behind us.

  “Where to?” Dmitri asked, as if he didn’t already know.

  I gave him the only possible answer.

  “The Castle on the Hill.”

  Without a word, Dmitri turned north toward Danvers. I could tell what he was thinking by the worried expression on his face. He thought we were too late.

  To keep my mind off Denise’s plight, I tried to sort out the events of the past few days, trying to put the various pieces together like some kind of enormous jigsaw puzzle. I knew I was missing something, something important, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  When in doubt, start over from the beginning.

  It was something my father used to say, back when I was a kid, and it had stuck with me all of these years. With nowhere else to start, it seemed as good an idea as any other.

  Okay, I thought. What exactly do I know?

  I had a series of killings going back at least fifteen years, all of which had been carried out by an as yet unidentified doppelganger that was targeting the Gifted. The killing spree had started slowly, with both time and distance between the individual attacks, but this had changed right about the time my daughter was taken. Somehow, her disappearance was connected to the most recent killings. That much was obvious. Even worse, the killer himself had arranged to bring me into the investigation, had used both ancient script and items stolen directly from my daughter to get my attention.

  So what did the murders have to do with me?

  That was a question I didn’t know where to begin to answer. Prior to my meeting with the Preacher, I hadn’t even known creatures like the doppelganger existed. I’d gone my merry way, unconcerned by and uninvolved with whatever mischief the supernatural denizens of the world chose to spread. I’d been the classic example of a mildmannered college professor, for heaven’s sake, without any enemies to speak of. And I’d have stayed that way too, if they hadn’t taken Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth.

  That was it! It had to be.

  I was asking myself the wrong question. It wasn’t what I had to do with the murders, but rather what Elizabeth had to do with them that mattered.

  Don’t be an idiot, my conscience told me. She was just a little girl when she was taken. What could she possibly have to do with it all?

  That was exactly what I had to find out. It couldn’t be a coincidence that shortly after Elizabeth was taken the killings began to happen at a faster rate. Either her abduction had pushed the killer to a new timetable or she had provided him with something he had previously had to do without. My gut was telling me it was the latter, though I didn’t have a clue what it might be.

  Nor was I going to figure it out without more information. Hopefully, I was on my way to find it.

  The State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers, also known as Danvers State Hospital, was built in 1878 at a cost of $1.5 million dollars. It was originally built to provide residential treatment and care to the mentally ill, though its charter was expanded once in 1889 to create a training program for nurses and again in 1895 to add a pathology research laboratory.

  During the first few decades of its existence, Danvers was a model of humane treatment, including a site-wide policy on no restraints, but this gradually changed as the hospital soon was filled with far too many problem patients, from alcoholics and drug addicts to the criminally insane. By the 1950s the hospital was considered one of the worst in the region, using various types of shock therapy, lobotomies, and other such methods to make the patients manageable under conditions of extreme overcrowding.

  The hospital itself was situated at the top of the Hathorne Hill, in a wooded area just north of the town of Danvers on Interstate 95. The centerpiece was the massive, fortress-like Kirkbride building, all Gothic spires and red brick, which earned the place its nickname of the Castle on the Hill. Eight wings jutted off to either side of the main building, four on each end, like the steps of some massive pyramid. The place had been closed since the early nineties and the state had done its best to discourage the usual trespassers with guard patrols and prosecution of those caught on the grounds.

  It wasn’t too long ago that I’d given some thought to making a trip out to the place. It had long been rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of those who had been held there over the years, and a certain morbid curiosity had made me want to see for myself if the rumors were true. I suspected that they were, as a place with that much emotional residue to it couldn’t help but attract the dead like moths to a flame, but suspecting and knowing for certain were two different things. I’d even done a fair amount of research on the place, delving into its history and doing what I could to learn the general layout so I wouldn’t be stumbling around blind in the dark when and if I decided to go.

  I’d been surprised to learn that Danvers had once been called Salem Village, and that many of the events that led to the Salem Witch Trials, including the infamous trials themselves, had taken place in the vicinity of the hill on which the hospital now stood, and not in modern-day Salem. In fact, the spot on whi
ch the Kirkbride had been built had once contained the home of John Hathorne, one of the trial’s judges and the only one never to recant his actions during the trials.

  If that didn’t make the place haunted, I didn’t know what would.

  Before I’d had the chance to act on my plans, however, the property had been sold to a consortium of new owners who intended to tear the whole place down and build luxury condominiums on the site. The occasional foot patrol was changed to twenty-four-hour coverage, and I decided the whole thing was too much of a bother.

  It looked like I was finally going to get my chance to see it.

  I was determined, however, not to make the same mistake that my partners had by walking in the front door. There were other ways into the complex, ways that the fetch and its master might not know about.

  In fact, I was counting on it.

  I was exhausted from all the time I’d spent linked to Dietrich but was too high on adrenaline and anxiety to rest. Even worse, I was jonesing for a cup of coffee something fierce. Going after the fetch without at least one cup of joe in my veins seemed almost, well, sacrilegious or something. At least lamenting my lack of coffee kept me occupied until we turned onto the property itself.

  “Where, exactly, are we?” I asked, when Dmitri announced we had arrived.

  “In the woods near the power plant at the bottom of the hill, like you asked.”

  An urban explorer I once spoke to had told me about the labyrinth of underground tunnels that connected much of the complex. The majority of them branched off from a central hub located behind the Kirkbride building, connecting that location to places like the male and female nurses’ homes, the machine shops, and several of the other medical buildings, but the one I was interested ran from the old steam-and-power-generating plant up the hill to the Kirkbride itself.

  Of course, first we had to find the entrance.