by J. R. Rain
I snickered and reminded her that the entity, as far as we knew, could only jump from one body at a time.
“Well, we don’t know that for sure, Sam. In fact, we know very little about it.”
“Which is why I want to talk to Tara.”
Allison still didn’t like it, except this time she gingerly slipped the knife inside her waistband. I chuckled and took a shower. Showers were still one of my few great pleasures in this new life of mine, and I reveled in the warmth it provided, always reluctant to leave. Even after the shower was long off, I stood there briefly in the stall, the heat and steam, and watched the water drip down my still-pale skin. Pale and flawless, granted.
No, I thought. Pale and dead.
I threw on my last pair of dry jeans, then tossed my sopping-wet clothes in the bungalow’s washer. I’d just turned it on and was toweling my hair when a gentle rap came on the front door.
As of someone gently rapping, I thought, thinking of the Edgar Allan Poe poem, rapping at my chamber door.
* * *
As I reached for the door, I mentally reminded Allison to guard her thoughts. She understood...and reached down and adjusted the knife at her hip. I might have detected a small spot of blood appearing through her jeans where the point had poked her.
I next remembered the words of the Source: They operate out of fear, Sam. Fear of moving on, fear of giving up power, fear of retribution. They are, quite simply, misinformed.
Misinformed or not, the being that possessed the Thurmans was, I suspected, desperate and powerful. A hell of a dangerous combination. But I would not fear it, whatever it was.
The smallest match can illuminate the darkest room.
I opened the door, stepped aside, and let the Devil in.
Chapter Thirty-six
Tara, of course, didn’t look like the Devil.
Or a highly evolved dark master, for that matter. In fact, other than looking wet and cold, she looked exactly as I’d remembered her: young, fresh-faced, alert, alive. Not pale and gaunt. Not vampiric.
It’s because he’s not a vampire, Allison said. Not quite.
I nodded minutely as I invited Tara to have a seat. She did so at the small kitchen table. I asked if she wanted Allison to make her some coffee. Tara shook her head—and just missed the nasty look Allison shot me.
I considered how to broach the subject of her family, and decided to dive right in. “I’ve heard about the family curse,” I said.
Tara, who was wearing a cute pair of tight jeans and bright red rain boots lined with rabbit fur, snapped her head up. The black, vaporous thread that wound through her aura pulsated a little.
He’s listening, I thought. How I knew this, I didn’t know, but it seemed obvious now.
“Who told you?”
“That’s not important now. What can you tell me about it?”
Her own once-vibrant aura seemed to shrink a little, a sign that she was going within, closing herself off to me. “Sam, it’s really quite silly.”
“From what I heard, it didn’t sound silly,” I said. “It sounded dangerous.”
The black thread began rotating slowly through her aura now, weaving in and out. Tara held my gaze briefly, and then looked away. I felt her fear.
“It’s really not something I want to talk about,” she said. “Also, I don’t see what this has to do with why I hired you.”
“Why are you afraid?” I asked.
She looked at me, then at the door. I reached out and took her hand. As I did so, the black, ethereal snake swelled briefly and circled even faster, weaving in and out, watching me carefully. Yes, I sensed it watching me.
“You’re not leaving,” I said.
“Hey, let go.”
“I know about the curse, Tara,” I said, squeezing her even tighter, but not so tight as to hurt her. Tight enough for her to know she wasn’t going anywhere. After all, I was going to have to get through decades of fear and confusion. “I know about your great-grandfather, and I know what he brought upon your family.”
She fought me briefly, but to no avail. As I held her hand, I got psychic hit after psychic hit.
“No,” she said. “It’s just a silly superstition—”
“You and I both know it’s not a superstition. You and I both know that something dark and angry and hungry has entered your lives. Something that will never leave.”
“You’re crazy, Sam—”
“You feel it in you, you feel it when it overcomes you. You feel it make you say things, do things, want things. You thought you were crazy. You thought all of you were crazy. But it’s in you. You understand that now. It’s in all of you. In your blood. Like a parasite. A leech. A disease.”
“You’re crazy, Sam.”
“I’m not crazy. And neither are you.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. She looked over at Allison, then back at me. “Why are you doing this? What’s the matter with you? I hired you to find answers to my grandfather’s death.”
“And I am,” I said. “But ask yourself: Why did you hire me? Why me, out of hundreds of other private investigators?”
“I live in southern California. I...I liked your ad.”
“You live in Los Angeles, nowhere near me.”
“Your ad...” she mumbled.
“I see,” I said. “And why were you looking for a private investigator in Orange County?”
“I don’t—” She paused, fumbling for words. The black snake swirling faster and faster, weaving, in and out...
“You don’t know why, do you?” I said.
“I don’t—”
“You don’t know why because it compelled you to call me, to hire me.”
“Sam, please—”
My hands shot out and took both of hers this time. I dug my nail deep into her skin, making blood contact. She gasped, and in a flash, I saw it now, saw how it worked, saw how it used her and the others. The secret manipulation, down through the ages. I saw how it rarely, if ever, revealed its plans to them. It simply manipulated, used them. Like a sick puppet master. Mostly it left them alone. Mostly. That is, until it needed something from them—or wanted them to do something for it. In this case, it had compelled Tara to call me and hire me. But she did not know why. It had kept its reasons to itself.
I released her as she recoiled, rubbing her now-bleeding hands, shocked and clearly horrified. But I had seen what I needed to see. There had, of course, been something else I had seen. Something very, very strange.
“Tell me about the digging,” I said.
The black snake had swollen to nearly twice its usual size. The entity was here, but hadn’t quite taken over Tara fully. No, it was surveying the damage, assessing what needed to be done, if anything.
“It makes us dig,” she said finally. “On the north end of the island.”
“Dig for what?”
“I don’t know.”
“But it’s searching for something?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you were gone yesterday?”
She looked at me with pleading eyes. I saw the torment in her soul, felt the anguish in her heart. I knew the source of her pain: the entity had taken so much from her and her family.
“Yes,” she said. “It doesn’t tell us what it’s looking for.”
“Us?”
“Yes. Mostly it uses Edwin and me. When he’s resting, I take over.”
“What part of the island, exactly?”
Tara shook her head. “I...I can’t say.”
“It won’t let you say, you mean?”
She looked at me with pleading eyes. And nodded.
“Tara, would you like for me to remove this entity from your lives?”
Her mouth dropped open to speak, but she didn’t, couldn’t. The swirling black snake was so thick now, so dense, that it almost appeared real. The entity, I knew, had just taken her over.
The son of a bitch.
Still, Tara nodded. A very small nod. It was a
ll she could do against the will of the entity who, I knew, presently possessed her. Tara wanted help. Badly.
Now she stood slowly and smiled down at me. The same creepy smile I had seen on her before. “You cannot win, Samantha Moon,” she said evenly, except it wasn’t her. “Not against me. Not against us.”
And she turned and left the bungalow.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“That was so creepy,” said Allison.
“As hell,” I said.
“It allowed her to give you that information about the digging,” said Allison.
“I know.”
“It could have stopped her earlier, but didn’t,” said Allison. “Which means...”
“Which means it wanted me to know about the digging.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
I nodded absently. I couldn’t stop thinking about the desperate look in Tara’s eyes, even as she was compelled to say the words that came out of her mouth at the end, even as she was compelled to get up and leave.
I shuddered as my cell phone rang.
Secure line. Detective Sherbet, no doubt. I picked up immediately.
“Sam, it’s Sherbet.”
“I would never have guessed.”
“No jokes, Sam. Someone tried to break into your home last night.”
“My kids—”
“Are safe with me. I’m here at Kingsley’s home, if you want to call it that—”
“What happened, Detective?”
“A neighbor reported the break-in. Nothing was stolen, as far as we know.” He paused. “But they really weren’t looking to steal anything, were they, Sam?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“What were they looking for, Samantha? Be straight with me.”
I thought of Kingsley words, words that still made me feel sick to my stomach.
“My kids, I think,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Christ, you get into some weird shit.” He paused. “Sam, there’s something else.”
My heart thumped hard. “What?”
“Kingsley’s rather, um, interesting manservant—”
“Butler,” I said.
“Whatever. Frankie or whatever his name is, claimed to have seen someone lurking outside Kingsley’s house this morning—”
“Shit.”
“Sam, what the devil is going on?”
I gave him a glimpse of my thoughts, even long distance, and I sensed him shaking his head. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
“No.”
“That’s some weird shit.”
“Detective, I think it’s important that you take my kids somewhere else.”
“Where?”
I thought hard about that. “Somewhere I don’t know. Somewhere safe.”
“Somewhere you don’t know? What the devil are you...” And then Sherbet, the only other human being besides Allison who was privy to my thoughts, finally caught on. “I understand. I mean, I really don’t understand. In fact, I’m fairly certain I’m going batshit crazy. But, yeah, I think I understand.”
“You do?” I said urgently.
“Yeah, you don’t want me to tell you where I’m taking the kids because...” he paused, no doubt searching for words.
“Yes,” I said, finishing for him, “because the thing inside me is listening.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
“We need to know why this entity brought me up here,” I said when I’d hung up with Sherbet.
“And why it wants your kids,” chimed in Allison.
Another very cold chill went through me. I began pacing in the bungalow. Who had come to my house? Who was outside of Kingsley’s house? Why did they want my kids?
“I think we know who,” said Allison, somehow following my frantic thoughts. “I’m certain the Thurman clan reaches far and wide.”
I sat on the arm of the leather sofa, ran both hands through my hair. My too-thick hair. Never was my hair this thick when I was mortal.
“He controls them all,” continued Allison, “anyone with a drop of Thurman blood.”
“Jesus,” I said. “So how do we stop him?”
“That,” said Allison, “is why you make the big bucks.”
“Great,” I said, and thought again about the image I’d received from Tara: that of her and Edwin digging on the north side of the island.
“A good place to start,” said Allison, following along. “Except if she doesn’t even know what they’re digging for, what makes you think we would know?”
“That,” I said, “is why they invented the Internet.”
“I thought they invented the Internet for porn?”
“That, too,” I said. “Grab your laptop, and let’s see what we can find.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said my new friend, and did just that.
* * *
It didn’t take us long to find something.
“A shipwreck,” said Allison, pointing to screen. “Over a hundred years ago, right off the north side of Skull Island. Okay, we are definitely venturing into Scooby-Doo territory here.”
“Except Scooby-Doo and the gang didn’t deal with a body-jumping demon who’s after me and my kids. Read the article.”
She did.
In 1896, a shipping vessel hit rough waters just north of Skull Island. Most of the crew of fifteen survived, except for the captain who went down, proverbially, with the ship. The remaining fourteen crew members, via life rafts, eventually washed up onto Skull Island, where they were soon rescued.
“Weird and cool all rolled into one,” said Allison. “But I don’t see how that helps us.”
I didn’t see it either. “What’s the name of the historian quoted in the article?”
“Abraham Gunthrie, college professor from Western Washington University in a city called Bellingham.”
“Where’s Bellingham?”
She brought up the city and college on Google Maps. Bellingham was north of here, about an hour away as the eagle flies. Or, in my case, as the giant vampire bat flies. I bumped Allison rudely out of her seat and, while she protested and rubbed her bruised hip, I brought up one of my proprietary websites and entered in my username and password. A few clicks later and I had the information I needed. The professor’s home address.
“That’s kinda scary how fast you can do that.”
“I use my powers for good,” I said. “Mostly.”
“You do realize that the storm is even worse. No one is leaving or coming to the island.”
“Not everyone,” I said. I logged off the site, got up and began packing myself a weatherproof bag.
Chapter Thirty-nine
I was flying.
Through wind and rain and lightning. Kinda like the mailman, only scary as hell.
Below, the gray, churning sea spread far and wide. The vague shape of a distant land mass was my target. Lightning appeared around me, sometimes just barely missing me. I wondered what it would feel like to be struck by lightning. Probably hurt like hell. Would I plunge from the sky, to sink to the bottom of the ocean?
Maybe. Sinking to the bottom of the ocean didn’t concern me much, since I had little use for my lungs. In fact, I quite enjoyed plunging into the water every now and then and gliding like a great manta ray.
Hanging from one of my scary-looking talons was my favorite Samsonite carry-on bag. I continued about a thousand feet over the churning ocean, buffeted by winds that threatened to knock me off course—threatened, but never succeeding. My wings were powerful in this form. I was powerful in this form. It would take a lot more than a gale-force wind to knock me down.
Shortly, I came upon a rocky shoreline and a few scattered homes. I followed a meandering road that wound along the edge of the land, affording, undoubtedly, wonderful views of the ocean.
More homes appeared as the road angled inland. And there, through the driving rain, was the sparklin
g city of Bellingham. I circled above it within the clouds, looking for a good spot to land, and found one in a park near the university.
I alighted smoothly upon a bench because, in this form, I seemed to prefer landing on something—rocks, tree limbs, park benches—which I could never quite figure out.
Must be the bird of prey in me.
I tucked my wings in, and once again saw the vision of the woman in the flame—and soon, a curvy but toned mother of two, was squatting naked on the same park bench, a Samsonite carry-on bag looped around her ankle.
Sometimes it’s fun to be me.
Weird, but fun.
Chapter Forty
After dressing and hailing a cab, I was soon standing outside of Professor Abraham Gunthrie’s quaint little home.
A typical Washington home, I discovered: clapboard siding, cute herbal garden, and a stone path through roses. There was a wooden wraparound porch with views of the University and his equally charming neighbors’ homes. I wondered if he ever suspected a creature of the night would be descending upon his idyllic world.
Probably not. Then again, he probably never expected a private eye to come knocking, either.
Which is exactly what I did. Three times, loud enough to be heard throughout the small home. I watched a squirrel make a mad dash out into the storm and cross the manicured lawn. About halfway, it paused, no doubt regretting its decision to leave its cozy, acorn-filled nook somewhere high in the tree. Finally, it continued on, running and hopping alternately.
As it disappeared from view, I heard footsteps creak across a wooden floor and approach the front door. I already had my business card in hand as I waited.
The man who opened the door was older, as I knew he would be. Abraham Gunthrie sported a Van Dyke goatee, pointed at the end, and some errant ear hair. His eyebrows looked bushy enough for that squirrel I’d just seen to hide its acorns in.
“May I help you?” he asked. His voice was stronger than he looked. I briefly imagined him standing before his students, his deep voice easily reaching the back rows.
