Kevin fell backward under the weight of Jim and Bruce. His head slammed into the edge of one of the stairs and he dropped the Taser he had been holding, sending it clattering down the steps. Bruce and Jim tumbled over Kevin and crashed to the bottom of the stairs.
Jim put his body into a modified tuck and roll and half-rolled, half-slid past Bruce. He landed in a controlled heap at the foot of the stairs.
Bruce’s bulk caused him to bounce on his back down the stairway. His head hit the floor at the bottom and his heavy torso careened past his head and neck. The force left his neck twisted at an abnormal angle.
Jim scrambled to his feet. He heard a low moaning coming from the direction of the banister. Kevin lay across several of the stairs, halfway between top and bottom. Not moving, not making a sound. The moaning came from Bruce. His fat body had beached itself at the foot of the staircase, his head and neck arched and twisted. Only his lips and his eyes moved. Bruce followed Jim with his eyes as Jim stepped around his body.
“Kill me,” Bruce whispered. “Please.”
Jim looked down at Bruce. It would be easy. A quick kick at the correct angle and Bruce’s spinal cord would snap in two. Jim looked around. He had room to swing his leg with enough force to finish Bruce.
“Please,” Bruce begged again. “The voices. They’re screaming at me. I can’t move. Make them stop.”
Jim saw desperation in Bruce’s eyes. It was so tempting to give him what he wanted. Jim knelt down and put his lips close to Bruce’s ear.
“Sorry, Mr. York,” Jim whispered.
He looked up the stairs. No sign of Kat yet. He turned back to Bruce.
“My hands are tied. Literally. What I can do for you,” Jim said, “is promise that we will do everything we can to keep you alive for your trial.”
Bruce’s eyes rolled back. He blinked, followed by rapid-fire blinks and groans. He moaned like a wounded animal, or maybe like a man with a tormented soul and no get-out-of-hell-free card to play.
Jim knew he didn’t have much time. They’d made a huge racket on the stairs and Bruce’s moaning did not help. For the first time in his life, Jim was thankful for an approaching hurricane. Hopefully, Kat would attribute the noise to the wind that pounded away at the side of the house.
He had one more bit of business with Bruce. The Viper’s key fob. He squatted next to Bruce and managed to get his hands into his pocket. Jim retrieved the Viper’s fob and the key to the gate. He shoved them into his pocket.
He then went up the stairs to where Kevin lay, sprawled across several steps. Jim shoved Kevin with his foot. No reaction. Kevin laid there, eyes closed, most likely dead, or damn close to it. Both pistols were still secured in Kevin’s waistband. Jim lowered himself, his back toward Kevin, until he felt the grips of one of the pistols against his fingers. He managed to pull the weapon loose without losing his balance and toppling down the stairs again. By feel, he managed to release the safety.
Pausing for a second, Jim listened. Nothing but the sound of the wind and Bruce’s pitiful moaning. Jim stood and went down the stairs into the main room where Carl remained tied to the chair. Kat stood next to Carl, holding the point of a medium-length, kitchen knife to his throat. Her other hand held a small black candle.
“I instructed you to come alone, Jim,” Kat told him.
Her voice was flat. The tone matter-of-fact.
“I thought you were upstairs waiting for me,” Jim said.
“I came down through the kitchen. I knew those two idiots couldn’t be trusted. Too bad about your friends. You won’t be seeing them tonight. They should have stayed home.”
Carl looked frozen. His eyes were open, but if he was breathing, Jim couldn’t tell. Jim saw the point of the blade push farther into Carl’s neck. A fine line of blood trickled down from where it had pricked Carl’s skin.
“I told you if you didn’t come alone, your friend would die.”
Before Jim could react, Kat pushed the knife into Carl’s neck.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX
Probably the only advantage to jogging during a hurricane is that you have the wind at your back. At least until the eye passes over and the wind changes direction.
That was Saffi’s thought as she reached the front gate of the estate. She saw a modern security fence topped by razor wire. It encased the pillars of the original gate and ran the length of the property’s front. She saw candle light flickering through the front window.
She knew that Jim would have cut his way through the fence somewhere near the rear of the property. Saffi had a choice: follow the fence left, or follow it right to try to find the break. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the brush seemed thinner to her left.
Saffi turned into the wind and followed the fence around the perimeter of the estate. She also prayed.
“Dear Lord,” she prayed aloud as she made her way along the fence, “Keep Jim safe. Give him strength and wisdom, Lord. Preserve him from his enemies and give us victory over this evil. In the name of Jesus. Amen.”
The fence extended one hundred feet past the house. She followed it around the side of the property. She encountered more trees, closer together the farther back she went. The wind beat her mercilessly as she struggled through the trees and underbrush, fighting for every foot. The wind used the limbs of the trees to whip her, as if they were punishing her for presuming that God cared enough to listen to her simple prayers.
By the time she reached the break in the fence where Jim had forced his way through, Saffi had been beaten and bruised, and teetered on the edge of exhaustion. Yet she still prayed, remembering that the apostle Paul had once written, “Pray without ceasing.” She had never read better advice.
For the last hundred yards, she had hugged the fence. Someone had constructed it a few feet away from a great wall of trees and brush that had suddenly appeared on the estate side. At the breach she took a deep breath, shook off her fatigue, and steeled herself for whatever she might encounter on the other side. She pushed the fence enough to allow her to slip through, forced her way into the waiting tree line, and found herself stumbling into a clearing. Even in the dark, she could tell that the wall of vegetation surrounded the glade. As hard as the wind had blown outside, inside the clearing, she only felt a breeze. Yet the foliage wall moved and swayed, writhing all around her.
The ground underneath her feet had changed from twigs, sticks, and stumps to a soft carpet that almost made her want to remove her shoes and lie down. Even the wind, roaring to hurricane force outside, whispered with a seductive softness inside the peaceful sanctuary.
The whole experience reminded her of the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her companions entered the deadly poppy field and went to sleep. But it would be suicide to lay down here and sleep. Saffi had passed through her own dark forest, but unlike Dorothy, she knew that the estate ahead was not Oz, and no friendly wizard waited to help her. Only a truly wicked, demon-possessed, witch of a woman who, right now, might be enchanting, seducing, and even destroying her friend, Jim.
Those were Saffi’s thoughts when, in the darkness, she splashed into the shallow end of the pool. The cold water around her ankles surprised her and she stopped for a moment. She heard a wet slap somewhere across the dark water. She could not see how far the other end of the pool was from where she stood. Maybe she had heard part of a tree fall into the water. Or, just maybe, it was the belly flop of a big alligator. A big, hungry alligator. Not taking any chances with that. Outta here. Now.
She moved as quickly as she could away from the pool. Behind her, she heard more splashing and something that sounded like a low-pitched, staccato growl. Not waiting to identify the noise, she pushed ahead through the brush surrounding the pool and struggled again against resistant and unforgiving woods. She finally popped out on the other side, behind the mansion.
The wind attacked again as she labored forward toward the dark, looming mass of the once grand house. A soul-crushing darkness pressed down upon her
. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. She saw what looked like blacker-than-black shadows swirling above the top of the house. The shadows dipped down, penetrating the solid walls and roof. They flew in and out of the structure in some wickedly ghoulish sky-dance.
While her Pentecostal friends would probably think her unexpected ability to actually see demons was pretty cool, it was beyond anything Saffi had ever experienced, or had ever wanted to experience, and she was going to have to enter that house. Well, that ain’t Oz, Saffi, and you’re sure as heck not in Kansas.
Whatever they were, the black phantoms paid no attention to her. Saffi pushed harder against the wind, all the while reciting the Lord’s Prayer. She reached the back of the house and climbed up the rear steps. She tried the back door and found it unlocked. She continued her prayer as she opened the door and stepped through. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me.
It was her last conscious thought.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Jim watched the knife slice through Carl’s neck. Carl’s eyes bugged out with terror. Jim saw the cords of Carl’s neck muscles tense as Carl tried to use his strength to stop the blade. A wasted effort.
Jim twisted his body around and tried to aim the pistol he held behind his back in his handcuffed hands. An awkward move, but the only chance Carl had. If he was a fraction of an inch off, he might hit Carl, doing even more damage to his wounded friend. But he had no other choice. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing. He pulled the trigger and watched Kat spin around from the bullet’s impact.
Jim kept firing, trying to adjust for the recoil and the awkward position. He fired three shots before he felt his knee start to give and had to shift his weight to his other leg, turning toward the stairs. Kevin stood next to Bruce’s body, holding the other pistol.
Jim jumped out of Kevin’s line of fire, feeling a bullet graze his left ankle. Jim hit the floor and rolled toward where Carl sat, Carl’s dark brown face now an unnatural white from the rapid loss of blood. Jim stopped rolling, landing slightly to Carl’s left. To his surprise, he felt the gun still in his hand.
He leaned forward, pointing the pistol toward Kevin. He fired in rapid sequence, three more shots, aiming by instinct. Kevin, using a wall for support, returned fire. Jim rolled toward Carl, Kevin’s bullets kicking up splinters of wood from the floor. Jim stopped moving and sat still. Kevin aimed his pistol straight at Jim. Jim fired first.
In the split second it took Kevin to steady his aim and pull the trigger, a 180-grain, jacketed, hollow-point round burst through Kevin’s chest, slamming him against the wall.
The bullet’s impact made Kevin jerk the trigger of Carl’s gun, and the shot went wild, missing Jim and Carl. Less than a second after the tip of the bullet pierced Kevin’s skin, he died, but his body stayed erect.
Jim watched what he later described as a dead man dancing. Black shadows exploded out of Kevin. Some flew up and away, disappearing into the dark void of the ceiling above. Others spun around, creating a black vortex around Kevin’s lifeless body that somehow kept his corpse on its feet. A few weaved in and out of Kevin as if they were dazed and confused. The whole scene reminded Jim of some bizarre, demonic Cirque du Soleil. A show that Jim would have been none too happy to have missed.
***
For some humans, the line between pain and pleasure could be very thin. For Baalzaric, it was practically non-existent. Pain meant physical life, as did pleasure. Therefore, the wound to Kat’s shoulder became merely another manifestation of the overwhelming demonic desire for feeling. As long as it were not life-threatening, Baalzaric would glory in the burning and aching brought by the deep furrow now carved across the top of Kat’s left shoulder.
Baalzaric had watched through Kat’s eyes as Kevin slowly and quietly came down the stairs. He was holding the other gun, but he looked bad. The walking dead.
The power of the indwelling demons had resurrected the nearly deceased Kevin. Kevin’s eyes had the glazed look of an eventually fatal, concussive injury. Baalzaric hoped the demons inhabiting Kevin could work together long enough to take out Demore, but Kevin’s impact-damaged brain interfered with the necessary connections. Timing and aim were off just enough to allow Demore to escape. Instead, Demore shot Kevin, and Kevin’s demons found themselves disembodied. Sad for them.
Kevin, dead. Bruce, dead. No great loss there.
Kat, fortunately, had suffered only a minor injury, and Demore would be busy trying to get help for his dying friend. Robert was still at AGT and would still be useful, but the problem of Demore remained. Handcuffed and probably out of bullets, with his friend near death, they had, for the moment, neutralized him.
Kat stood in the dark kitchen, holding another knife, as the wind whipped in through the back door. Baalzaric saw a female form lying in a heap on the floor. Although her position concealed her face, Baalzaric knew it was Demore’s friend. She had made it to the estate and into the kitchen.
Centuries of cunning and human knowledge whirled through his mind. He guided Kat toward the door, taking direct control for the first time. She hesitated, but Baalzaric overrode her reluctance, suborning her will to his.
Under his guidance, Kat bent down, grabbed a handful of hair, and pulled the head up in order to see the face. A bloody gouge creased the woman’s skull above her forehead. An apparent bullet wound.
Kat put her ear close to the woman’s mouth and nose. She heard her soft breathing, felt her warm breath. Baalzaric’s demon servants had failed to stop her. He would deal with them later. Somehow, the woman had made it to the estate and had walked right into their hands.
Baalzaric was not entirely surprised at her unexpected presence. Over the centuries, Baalzaric had come to realize that sometimes luck was a much better ally than cunning or intelligence. If Machiavelli were right and Fortune only ruled one-half of men’s fate, then tonight, Baalzaric would be the force that ruled the other half.
CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT
The dead man’s dance ended, and Kevin’s corpse, still wearing Carl’s oversized utility belt, collapsed at the foot of the stairs. Jim retrieved Carl’s handcuff keys and managed to unlock the cuffs. With his hands now free, he put a fresh magazine into the forty-caliber automatic and then checked Carl.
Carl was out, but the bleeding had slowed and he still had a faint pulse. Although the knife went all the way through Carl’s neck, it looked as if Kat had thrust the blade in too quickly, carelessly. Carelessly to Carl’s advantage. While Carl had lost a lot of blood, the position of the handle indicated that the blade sliced through muscle, and missing his main arteries and spinal cord. It left Carl badly injured, but still alive. Barely.
Jim reached for the phone on his own utility belt, but it was gone, along with his second magazine. One of Kevin’s bullets had torn through both cases, ripping the phone and the magazine loose.
Jim checked Bruce and Kevin. He found their phones, but they were both damaged and neither would work. Jim checked Carl’s utility belt and found Carl’s phone still in its case with no obvious damage. Jim pressed the power button. The phone came alive, went through its startup routine, and shut down again, the batteries too weak to keep the phone working. Jim didn’t want to risk moving Carl, but needed to get help fast. The Viper. Faster than a Porsche.
With the Viper, it would only take a few minutes to get to a phone and call for help. And I have the key.
He had been less worried about Kat escaping than he was about Carl surviving. He went back to Carl, but decided not to untie him. He didn’t want to take the risk of moving Carl and the knife, potentially nicking an artery, or slicing through a nerve bundle. Jim knelt and leaned in close to Carl.
“Hang in there, buddy,” Jim said softly.
Carl’s eyes fluttered. If Jim had been standing a few feet away, he may not have noticed.
“Jim?” Carl whispered between gasps.
Jim waited, realizing that Carl could talk
, or he could breath. Almost impossible to do both.
“The little guy. The freak. Watch out. He has my gun,” Carl croaked.
He gave Carl a quick pat.
“Had your gun. Don’t worry,” Jim reassured him, “He’s down. Permanently.”
Jim stood, listening for a moment. All he could hear was the sound of hurricane-force winds beating the sides and roof of the house. He leaned back toward Carl.
“Stay strong. I’ll be back.”
Carl’s head sagged and Jim quick-checked Carl’s pulse again. Weak, but still there, thank God.
He knew Carl had little time left. Jim turned and headed for the back of the house.
***
Kat knew that she had to get the woman bound and gagged. The gag was especially important. The spirit guide, or voice, or whatever it was inside her head, had warned her that another spirit indwelt this woman. However, it was a different spirit. A spirit so powerful that if the woman were allowed to speak in the name of the Nazarene, none of Kat’s spiritual allies would be able to resist the woman’s commands. Kat would be powerless, and everything she had accomplished and dreamed about would be undone. She would be an old, old woman by the time they let her out of prison. Assuming they would ever let her out.
Kat found an old towel and tore it into strips. She tied the woman’s hands behind her back. She took another piece of towel, rolled it into a small ball, and forced it into the woman’s mouth. She used the remaining strip to tie the gag in place.
Kat grimaced as she lifted the woman to her feet. The woman was groggy and unsteady, but managed to stand. Kat stood behind her, holding Saffi by her bound wrists. Kat’s other hand held another kitchen knife. Kat pulled the kitchen door shut before dragging the woman off into the corner, but the sound of the wind from the approaching storm still forced its way into the house, violating the estate with the same relentless pounding that she had known with Robert Greer.
The Demon Pool Page 35
