Phillippe collapsed and Rodney wiped the crucifix on his victim’s shirt. He didn’t know how the body would be retrieved—maybe the ropy tentacles would slither across the floor, or maybe the wires overhead would carry it back to the furnace. Rodney wanted to be out of the basement before that happened.
Lucifer’s greatest trick wasn’t getting people to believe he didn’t exist. His greatest trick was playing God better than God ever had.
Chapter 33
Morning dropped like a bag of broken rocks.
The thirst was the first thing he noticed, and his tongue felt like a wool sock. His skull throbbed, each sluggish heartbeat punching through taut, angry arteries. He found himself lying on his back, but the bed was floating. He touched his forehead, afraid to open his eyes.
God, why did you make me wake up?
The Digger had done it again. He wasn’t sure where he was or how he’d gotten here, or even if he was anywhere at all. If someone would yank the vibrating screwdriver out of his temple, maybe he could remember.
There was one other option. Maybe he was dead. This might be his afterlife, his condition forever and ever. Not even a glass of water, not even enough bile in his stomach to puke.
A clacking sound rattled his ears and then light poured over him, sharp enough to slice his eyelids.
“They’ve been looking for you, Dad.”
“Who?” The word tasted like dirty pennies.
“SSI, the hotel people, the hunters, everybody.”
“What...time is it?”
“Don’t worry, I told them you were having a nervous breakdown. Saw your dead wife and it blew you mind. They’ll cut you some slack.”
He gave an experimental blink and found the room was fuzzy. “You shouldn’t—”
“Cover for you. I know.”
Digger was in his rumpled clothes, still wearing his boots. He rolled away from the sunlight that sluiced through the window like an accusing finger. He swallowed down nails, fiberglass, cobwebs, and sand, and dry acid slithered back up. His pulse was erratic and fluttering.
“Shit,” he said.
“Could be worse.”
“How could it be worse?”
“I’m not sure, but it could be. Mom could be dead or something.”
Digger opened his eyes. Kendra sat on the opposite bed, fully dressed, the box of registration information beside her.
“Shouldn’t you be downstairs registering people?”
“Registration’s ended.”
He licked his chapped lips. “It goes until noon.”
“It’s nearly two.”
He tried to rise, but a sit-up position brought too much blood to his head, so he flopped on his side and rolled up on one elbow. His knuckles were bruised. He hoped he hadn’t punched anyone. “I blew it again.”
“Nah,” Kendra said. “The show must go on. Burton and Cody are leading the panels, and Holmes and the others are looking for Roach.”
“Roach?”
“He’s missing.” She peered at him. “Guess you don’t remember that part, huh?”
He swung his legs off the bed and sat up, and the nausea hit him almost instantly. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to make it to the bathroom. “Besides Roach, how is everything else going?”
“A lot of people are mad about the messed-up hunts. A couple asked for refunds.”
“What did you tell them?”
“The fine print. ‘No refunds after Nov. 12.’“
“Are you mad?”
“Why should I be mad?”
“You know....”
“What? Another broken promise? Another disappointment? Another chance to babysit my dad? What’s to be mad about?”
“It’s...the thing with your mom....”
“I know, I know. After you pulled that bit, I thought I saw her, too. Power of suggestion. Neat trick.”
“It’s her.”
“And what if it was? You were afraid to face her so you crawled back in the bottle like you always do?”
No, I was....”
Excuses. He always had some handy. Cristos made him. Gelbaugh. Blame this, blame that, blame those people. All their fault. When all else failed, God made the ultimate fall guy.
“I was out of control,” he finished, fighting down a knot of vomit. “I knew better than to take that first sucker drink.”
“Well, I got my own problems. I’m being stalked by a ten-year-old brat who has keys to the whole hotel.”
“No kids here.”
“Tell him that. It’s like I’m his personal entertainment. He keeps showing up out of nowhere, pestering me and playing tricks. I think his dad works here.”
“I’ll talk to the manager about it.”
Kendra shook her head, her dark hair swinging across her shoulders. “Don’t rat him out. I can handle it. Besides, it’s only for another day.”
“Two o’clock. Two more panels before the dinner break.”
“Speaking of which, can you keep anything down? I can get you orange juice and some toast.”
Digger winced. That was the menu for his “headaches,” when young Kendra would bring him breakfast in bed, thinking he had a cold. The glass of water was there on the bedside table, though its ice had melted. He tried a sip. “This is fine. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“I wanted to—”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Kendra, I—”
“You’d better clean up and put in an appearance. The Digger can’t keep his fans in suspense forever.”
He took a few more drinks of water, the fluid racing through the greasy tunnels inside him. “She wants to tell me something.”
“We don’t believe in ghosts, Dad.”
“I made a promise.”
“Like that means anything?” She jumped to her feet and grabbed her sketchpad. She tossed his walkie talkie beside him. “Give me a call when you get your act together. Maybe I’ll still be around.”
Then she was out the door, the slam echoing through his head like a thunderstorm, leaving him alone with the pain and sickness and self-pity.
He clutched at the walkie talkie and held it with a trembling hand. “Beth?”
Nothing. The batteries were dead. Just like his soul.
Chapter 34
The panel entitled “Christianity and the Paranormal” had gone about as well as could be expected, meaning the few true believers who approached hunting with a missionary zeal were not stoned by the hardcore atheists in the crowd. Burton had to admit, Wayne had done a good job of balancing the panelists, with an Episcopal minister, a physicist from Westridge University who viewed supernatural phenomena as dimensional disturbances, a member of the Eastern Seaboard Skeptics Society, and a Jewish scholar who specialized in the Old Testament. Despite Martin Gelbaugh’s repeated heckling, the divergent viewpoints had filled the hour and entertained the attendees.
With the audience dividing up for break-out sessions on EVP technology, Ghosthunting 101, and ectoplasmic detection, Burton had a couple of hours to round up Roach, sober up Wayne, and find out why Cody had a bug up his ass, but first he had to clear all the keys for the evening’s hunt locations.
At the front desk, he encountered the same gum-popping teenager who’d worked the night shift. From the way she slumped in her chair, the magazine curled to the shape of her grip, she could have perched there around the clock.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Is the manager in?”
She scarcely glanced up from her magazine. “We don’t know where she is.”
“Someone on your staff has been locking the doors behind us. We were told all the hunt locations would remain acessible.”
“Nobody could be locking the doors. The only set of master keys belongs to our maintenance supervisor, Wally Reams, and he’s off today.”
“Both 302 and 218 are locked. And we were promised—” He looked around, lowering his voice in deference to the guests. “Look, I’m okay with the
staff playing tricks. I know it’s all part of the haunted-house show. But we’ve already got some pissed-off clients, and if they miss out on any more hunts, we might all be looking at some refunds.”
He glanced around the shabby foyer. “And I don’t think either of us can afford that.”
“I’m sorry, Burton,” she said, reading the name stenciled on the left breast of his uniform. “The maids are gone for the day. No one else would have access, and the locks require a key.”
Burton fought an urge to reach over the counter and slap the magazine out of her hands. “I can’t—”
“Excuse me,” An attractive young woman stepped from the alcove behind the clerk. “Are you having a problem?”
The gum-popper said, “Violet, this man says we’re locking doors on them.”
Burton recognized her. She was the one who’d shown Wayne around during yesterday’s set-up. “Look, we have a lot of hunts scheduled tonight, and we can’t have any accidents that will throw us off track.”
“Please come to my office,” Violet said.
“Janey’s going to kill you,” the desk clerk said.
“I’ll take my chances.”
The gum-popper shrugged and went back to her magazine. Burton rounded the corner and entered the office via a short hall. The fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed, giving their skin a seasick look. The space was cluttered, but Violet took a stack of papers from a chair and indicated that he should sit.
“I can’t stay long,” he said.
“This won’t take long.”
“About the keys. Wayne told me you guys were playing along, setting up stuff so our guests will think they’ve had supernatural encounters. You know, a little knocking on walls, whispering in the air ducts, messing with the electricity. We’re fine with that. I have to admit, you’re putting on a good show. Those projected images went beyond the call of duty.”
“What projected images?”
“You know, in the hall. That ‘Jilted Bride’ thing.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Violet had settled behind the warship-gray desk. She lit a cigarette.
“I thought you had a ‘No smoking’ policy,” he said. She held her cigarette with an easy familiarity, though she winced at the strength of the smoke.
“There’s an exception to every rule,” she said. “I’m the exception.”
“We can’t have problems with the keys.”
“There’s no problem. You’ll get where you need to be, when I need you to be there.”
Because she was attractive, Burton had extended a little extra patience. But her blank, cold eyes offset the pleasing angles of her face. “I want to talk to the manager.”
“I’m afraid she’s unavailable.”
“Doesn’t she have a pager?”
“It wouldn’t matter if she did. She’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“If I knew that, all this would be pointless.”
Violet flipped her palm, but Burton couldn’t tell whether “all” meant the conference or the hotel. He also couldn’t believe the manager would skip out on the biggest event the White Horse had hosted since the Eisenhower administration. “Someone must have a master key.”
“Only the Master.”
Burton edged forward, only now noticing the corrupt odor of the office. The mop bucket in the corner was the likely cause of the stink. A greasy snake of unease slithered in his gut. “Look here, Violet.”
“I’m not Violet.”
Burton slapped the arms of his chair. “Fine. Just be ready to find another job next week.”
“Thank you and please come again.” She smiled but the gesture was disconnected from the rest of her face.
“The rooms better be open, or you’re going to have sixty unhappy campers on your hands.”
“Please enjoy your stay.”
Burton’s walkie talkie hissed and broadcast Cody’s voice. “Burton, you’ve got to come see this.”
As he was leaving, he glanced down into the mop bucket. The liquid in it was dark and thick, almost like....
Nah.
Chapter 35
Ann Vandooren was afraid to leave the room.
The reason she was afraid was because she wanted to leave the room. Ever since Duncan had brought the two SSI guys to the room, the paranoia had grown. They knew about the rigged images she’d broadcast. She’d be ridiculed and probably reported to the departmental dean at Westridge University. And she really didn’t give a damn.
Because now she understood. The supernatural wasn’t some bit of monkey business concocted by scared primitives; it was the overt manipulation of the dark gods. Give the people something invisible to fear so they didn’t see the demons in their midst.
“What should we do about it?” she asked Duncan, who had shut down the computer and was packing away the cables.
“Consider the experiment a failure.”
“I don’t like to fail. Is the halo still there?”
Duncan nodded. “There has to be some sort of simple explan—”
“Yeah. It’s a halo.”
“I need to get the cameras and projectors.”
“Don’t leave me alone.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Despite what the silly boys in their black jumpsuits had said, Duncan was happy to leave her in this condition. Maybe after sixteen hours observing the black halo, he’d grown accustomed to it.
“You know about succubi, right?” she said, moving from the window toward the bed. “Women believed to be demons or witches who draw power by having sex with their victims?”
“I know the mythology.”
She peeled her Dale Earnhardt T-shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. The cool air of the room drew her nipples into taut purple points. “Want to see what that’s all about?”
“You’re not a demon, Ann.”
“Right. I am a fucking angel.” She laughed, and the sound trailed off into a muted shriek that frightened her. “Get it? A fucking angel.”
“This isn’t the time to—”
“Test the theory?” She unbuttoned her jeans. “Afraid you might learn something?”
Duncan tossed the coils of cables on the bed. “Damn you.”
“I’m already damned.”
He pushed his crotch against her, the fabric of his pants gently chafing her skin.
“Shit, baby, what’s going on?” He was hoarse.
Raw, pulsing possession. The science of seduction. The age-old dance of the devil. “Shut up and worship.”
He brushed her hair with his fingers, then clutched a handful of strands and lifted her face from the bed. His other hand reached for the nearest coil of cable. Bitch Mode allowed her to smile and let her lips grant permission.
“Yessssss....”
Lilith, harpy, siren, witch, eventually it all came to this. No folklore, no religion, no rigorous adherence to scientific method. Just women taking it. Women loving it. And men dying for it.
Ann slammed back to meet his thrust and he was fully inside, reaching deep into the poisonous pit of her womb. He yanked one of her hands back and looped the cable around her wrist, then pressed her harder into the bed, her breasts squeezing into the mattress. She gave him her other hand and he bound her without missing a stroke, the crude knots straining her shoulders. He grabbed the bond and used it for leverage, banging himself deeply into her. The room was thick with the odor of their rutting.
The electric freeze jolted her brain and she screamed into the blankets. Her urgency carried him along on its tide, and her scream turned into a sibilant hiss of satisfaction. He swelled and exploded, and she felt his energy gushing into her.
He groaned and collapsed on top of her, pinning her bound arms between them. “My God, baby....”
God. How strange he’d invoke the thing he couldn’t believe in, the one thing she’d now come to understand and despise. God was the reason she was trapped here in
the hotel, exiled among these pathetic humans, when she could have been tasting all the delights of heaven and hell.
The pleasures and pains of the flesh had their attractions, but even those extremes served the will of that oppressive entity that hid behind the clouds. God needed her kind, their kind, on Earth because God didn’t like to get His hands dirty. If only He knew how much fun it was.
“Ann,” Duncan whispered in her ear, and she barely recognized the name. With his life force now added to hers, she was closer to fully possessing this body.
“Ann, I....”
She was afraid he’d let slip that last pathetic lie, that utter excuse for every mortal failing. “Shut up and die already,” she said.
He obliged.
Before he could say “I love you.”
She rolled him off, flexed her potent limbs, and snapped the cable. Sitting and shaking the circulation back into her hands, she looked between her legs at the blood.
Outside, the late-autumn shadows stretched as the sun slipped low. The approaching night offered many chances to offend and rebel and, perhaps, gain a foothold in which the real war could begin.
Chapter 36
Rodney must have passed out yet again, and he’d gone foggy first.
Because he was all the way across the basement, some 200 feet from where he’d killed Phillippe.
No, not “killed.” Sacrificed. In this war, words were important, because they staked the moral ground.
He was nestled in an alcove snaked through with conduit and plumbing pipes, propped against the block wall. A hot bullet of agony ricocheted from temple to temple inside his skull. His lower jaw was numb, but the bleeding had stopped. The crucifix was back in place on its silver chain, the weight cool and comforting against his chest. His digital audio recorder was clutched in his right hand.
The lights in the basement were still on, suggesting no one had visited the basement since the hostess had locked the door. That seemed unlikely, since at least three people were missing from the conference.
But Belial wouldn’t report Nancy, because Belial was probably having the time of its life, unleashed on a playground of gullible acolytes. And Rodney doubted the pissed-off woman would tell anyone about her own embarrassing encounter. But SSI would be looking for Rodney. He was important, and the team members took care of their own.
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