Private Demons

by Robert Masello

  It was a man—or the skeleton of a man; both things crossed his mind at the same time. And there were at least two more behind him, carrying something.

  “Who are you?” he blurted out, just before the thing slapped the flashlight out of his hand. “What the—” and then it was on top of him, its hands clamped around his throat. He tumbled backwards, down the rise. The thing fell with him.

  Brendan grabbed for its hands—they felt like claws around his throat—and tried to pry them loose. But their strength was incredible. Its face was only inches above his own—the skull was bald, the teeth and jaws exposed. He let go of its hands, and jammed his thumbs into its eyes.

  But the sockets were empty.

  His thumbs crooked easily into the hollow skull; inside, it was cold and powdery dry. He snapped it down, and the creature's jaws rattled. He snapped it back, and he heard the crack of old, dry bones.

  The grip of its fingers weakened.

  He rocked the skull like a loose tooth.

  One of its hands came up and clawed at his arm.

  He snatched a breath—he could smell the thing now, like dust and decay—and jerked its head to one side. It rolled off his body, with a gasp and a clatter.

  Brendan tried to scramble away, but it snagged his leg. He kicked out, and saw its teeth explode. He kicked again, and the skull flopped backwards like a blossom on a broken stem.

  Its fingers held on.

  He pulled back his leg, and kicked it again, full in the face, and this time the skull cracked off at the neck and went bouncing and rolling into the brush.

  Brendan crossed himself, sucking in the hot, jungle air.

  Its fingers were still clutching his leg, as if they still had life in them, and he had to pry them loose like lobster claws. The body—nearly all of it bones and petrified skin—lay on the dirt trail like the remains of something that had died long before . . . and not just moments ago.

  Brendan shuddered, and struggled to his feet. One of his sandals was gone; he kicked off the other. He had no idea where the flashlight was. But he couldn't waste any time looking for it. Or even wondering what he was up against.

  Though Molloy had known, and tried to warn him.

  He went back up the rise on all fours, then slid down the other side.

  The other men—or whatever they were—were gone. He knocked a clump of branches out of his way, and pressed on toward the river. He could see glimmerings of it through the trees.

  And activity on the shore.

  The other men, the ones that had been carrying something, had already made it there. They were passing their burden—something long and white and limp—up onto the deck of a junk.

  As Brendan feared, it was Kevin Molloy. Pridi was nowhere to be seen.

  There wasn't time to think of anything better—he leapt to his feet, screaming like a banshee, and ran out of the jungle. Two of the creatures turned, even as their fellows hauled Molloy toward a hatchway, then swung themselves up a rope ladder hanging from the side. A wind, out of nowhere, suddenly filled the sail.

  “Stop where you are!” Brendan screamed. “In the name of Christ, stop where you are!”

  He raced across a narrow strip of barren land, then splashed, up to his knees, in the marshy soil of the riverbank. With his arms outstretched, he waded after the drifting boat.

  “Let him go! Let him go!”

  There appeared to be no one left on deck. It was as if the boat were sailing itself.

  The water quickly came up to his chest, and then his shoulders.

  Two rows of oars suddenly jutted from the sides of the boat, and dipped, silently, into the slow-moving stream.

  Brendan took another step, and lost the bottom altogether.

  The boat gathered speed, and moved off toward the center of the river. The black sail flapped, as if in farewell.

  Brendan, treading water, knew it was hopeless. He turned back toward shore, his lungs almost bursting from the exertion, his legs nearly lifeless. He staggered back, through the swaying bamboo snoots, and up onto the riverbank again. He managed to make it another few feet before he tripped, and sprawled forward, over a hunk of soggy driftwood.

  He lay there, motionless, trying to gather his strength and senses. Trying to figure out what had happened. What he should do. Where he should go. His feet, bare and caked with mud, rested against the log he'd tripped over. He rolled onto his back, and stared up at the night sky. Where was Pridi? He prayed that he was simply hiding somewhere. Somewhere that Brendan could find him. He took another deep breath and stretched his aching legs; the log, to his surprise, rolled a little at his feet. And in the air, he suddenly smelled that same odor of blood. Even before he bolted upright, he knew.

  The log had no arms or legs or head anymore, but it was still wearing the madras shorts, now soaked with blood, that had come all the way from Chicago.

  CHAPTER

  18

  The letter from Thailand had arrived by way of the air courier service Lucien had instructed the clinic to use. At first he had expected it to be just another update on Kevin Molloy's slow and unsteady progress; for every step forward that he took physically (putting on a few pounds, gaining mobility in his limbs), he seemed to take another one back when it came to his mental faculties. But this wasn't the usual sort of progress report at all. It started with a few words about his condition, but quickly detoured into a plan of action that caught Lucien completely by surprise.

  “Your standing orders,” Father Brendan wrote, “have always been perfectly straightforward: to do anything and everything within my power to see that Kevin Molloy is returned to the fullest measure of health and well-being that the circumstances will allow. That is why I've decided to take him out of the clinic, and convey him to a small Catholic outpost up-country, where—though this is going to sound strange—there's a nun endowed with what I believe to be miraculous powers.”

  A miracle-working nun, in the jungles of northern Thailand? Lucien read on.

  “I have seen her myself. Rumors of her powers had filtered out, and as I was best situated to investigate, I was asked to see her and make a full report to my superiors. I went, armored with my usual skepticism—sometimes I think Thomas must be my patron saint—and I returned to the clinic convinced.”

  But who was this nun, Lucien wondered, and what did she look like? At the first mention of her, he had flashed on the image of the black-robed figure that he had seen, in his mind's eye, in the pool room with Mandy. The figure from whom he had felt some mysterious power emanating, whose face he had longed to uncover and see. Could this be the same woman? Could this be the figure that Mandy had kept stumbling over whenever she'd been trying to make a distant connection to Lucien? Who was this nun? What was her name?

  “She is known,” Father Brendan wrote, “as Sister Celeste, though the name was given to her by the Mother Superior of the convent. Her own name, along with nearly all of her previous existence, remains a mystery. She speaks very little. What we do know of her life gives a pretty clear indication why.” Here he recounted the story of her forced march into the country, under the guns of the Khmer Rouge, and her burial in the mass grave.

  Lucien felt his own heartbeat quicken with every detail. But what did she look like? What did she look like? He'd have given anything for a photograph. Why hadn't Brendan thought of sending a photograph?

  “She has taken up residence—sanctuary, it might be more appropriate to say—in an abandoned temple near the Cambodian border. A lot of local superstitions surround the place, which may be one more reason for her having gone there. But I believe I can get Kevin Molloy to her without causing him any harm. And I believe that she alone may have the power to cast out the demons that perpetually torment him. If she can't do it,” he added, “then I don't know who ever will be able to.”

  It was all Lucien could do not to jump up from his desk and race home to consult with Mandy. He had to offer her this new information, sketchy as it was, and see if it
couldn't help her to fill in the details of the figure they both had seen. Who was this women now known as Sister Celeste? What role did she have to play in his life? Could she be the means of releasing him from the terrible pact he had once made?

  The intercom on his desk buzzed. He was expecting Winifred Flint, the English reporter for The Sentinel, but not for another fifteen minutes or so. Perhaps she'd arrived early. “Yes?” he said, leaning toward the speaker.

  “You have an unexpected visitor,” Simone said in her characteristically dry manner. “A Ms. Hallie Patton. Shall I send her in?”

  He was so surprised that for a second he didn't answer. He heard Hallie's voice say, “You can't hide, Calais. I know you're in there.”

  He laughed, and said, “Yes, send her in.”

  The double doors opened and Hallie strode in, still wearing her big blue parka. Her cheeks were ruddy and her eyes sparkled from the cold outside. Lucien stood up, smiling, and started to come around the desk.

  “Stay right where you are, buster,” Hallie said, shrugging off her coat and tossing it on the leather sofa. “You've got some explaining to do.”

  “I do?”

  “Don't sound so innocent,” she said, and he could tell from her tone of voice that she was only half in jest. Simone slipped one hand into the office, and pulled the door closed.

  “How long have you been back in town?”

  “I only just arrived, last—”

  “Save it,” Hallie interrupted. “You've been back longer than that. And you haven't called me, or come to see me, or even left a message on my damned machine. I called it from a pay phone myself, just to make sure it was working.” She sat down in one of the two chairs angled toward his desk. “It was.”

  Lucien remained standing. It was so good to see her; he could feel his heart beating fast. But he knew that he'd hurt her, and for that he was truly sorry. “I haven't been avoiding you,” he said. “I've been trying to straighten some things out here first. I'm sorry.”

  She gave him a look that said he wasn't out of the woods yet.

  “You're looking very pretty,” he said, with a hint of a smile.

  “Keep going.”

  “I missed you.”

  “Hah.” But she betrayed, for a second, a smile of her own.

  “I was hoping we might have dinner tonight.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere you like.” But only after he'd had a chance to see Mandy in the pool.

  “What makes you think I'm free?” she said, in a voice that pretty well indicated she was.

  Okay, he thought, there's one more spoonful of medicine to take. “Are you free,” he asked, “to join me tonight, for dinner, at The Box Tree?” He knew it was her favorite restaurant in New York.

  She cocked her head, and pretended to be deliberating. “What time did you have in mind?”

  “Eight-thirty? Nine?”

  “Nine is good,” she said, airily. “I've got to get my nails done.”

  “Good,” Lucien said. “I like clean nails.”

  Now Hallie had to laugh too. She dropped the act and said, “Boy, have I been mad at you.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “I'm going to order the most expensive stuff on the menu.”

  “It's prix fixe.”

  “Not everything,” she warned. “You wait and see.”

  “How was Milan?” He noticed now that she had on the Princess Ring he had given her in Bangkok.

  “Crazy . . . like always. But the clothes were beautiful, and I had a pretty good time with Aline and Lisa.”

  “That's all? Just Aline and Lisa?” He decided to try administering a little of her own medicine.

  “That's right,” she said, knowing exactly what he was up to, “Aline and Lisa. In fact, I was out with Lisa again the other night—while you were off being incommunicado—at a party on the Upper East Side.” She lifted her legs—she was wearing faded jeans and rubber-soled shoes—and wrapped her arms around her knees. “That's actually what I came here to tell you about.”

  “Must have been an awfully good party.” He sat down again, still not having touched her. It felt like something important had been passed over.

  “It wasn't,” she said, “but it was mighty interesting. It was held at a little joint called The Pleiades.”

  He must have registered something, because Hallie said, “You know it?”

  “I know someone who used to work there.”

  “You'll have to tell me more about that sometime. Because the night I was there, the place was filled with some very kinky types—including a guy who introduced himself to me as a friend of yours.”

  He waited.

  “A guy named Duncan Kwan—half-Chinese, half-English. Said he owned that Gold Prow line I've heard you talk about.”

  “He owns a large piece,” Lucien said slowly, “but not the whole company.”

  “That isn't the way he tells it, but I'm not surprised. The guy is very, very strange. He sent me, and Lisa too, these extravagant flower arrangements to make sure we'd accept his invitation, and he said he sent you one too.”

  “A flower arrangement?”

  “No,” she said, laughing again, “I don't think so. Just an invitation.”

  “I've gone through most of that material, and I don't remember anything from Kwan.”

  “He's such a liar,” she said, shaking her head. “At first I thought the flowers were from you,” she added, unable to resist such an easy shot, “but then I looked at the card and all it said was, ‘The Swinburne Society,’ which was nothing I'd ever heard of. Lisa hadn't either.”

  But Lucien knew that he had. And just recently. It rang some tiny, far-off bell in his head. He buzzed Simone on the intercom and said, “Have you discarded all that personal mail I looked over on Tuesday?”

  “Ah-ha,” Hallie whispered, at his admission.

  “Yes, I'm afraid so,” she replied. “Why?”

  “Nothing,” he said, “nothing,” and clicked off again.

  “So you think he did send you an invite?” Hallie asked.

  “Possibly. I wish I knew for sure.”

  “Would it help if you saw one? I've still got mine.” She got up and went to the sofa, where she dug hers out of the same coat pocket she'd stuffed it in that night. “I thought this might come in handy,” she said, handing it across the desk to him and sitting back down.

  He studied the printed card, and remembered now getting one just like it. But the few words printed on it told him nothing more. “But why would Duncan Kwan be inviting me to a party?” he said, thinking out loud.

  “Probably for the same reason he invited me,” Hallie said. “To keep tabs on you. He's very interested in what you're up to, where you are, what you're planning. I think he thought I could give him a direct line to your heart and mind.” She glanced out the windows, overlooking the harbor. “Dream on, Duncan.”

  Lucien, tapping the card on the desk, said, “And who's Swinburne?”

  “Ya got me. An English poet, as far as I know. And if I can draw any conclusions from what went on at the club that night, he was also a sadist. Or a masochist. Or maybe both. In any case, he was definitely into whipping.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hallie had just launched into a description of the unusual activities she had witnessed, when the intercom buzzed again and Simone announced that Winifred Flint had arrived.

  Hallie stopped and said, “Who's she?”

  “A reporter for an English paper called The Sentinel. She's been raking us over the coals, and quite ably. I'd agreed to give her an interview to set some things straight.”

  “So I guess I'd better go now,” Hallie said, getting up and going to the sofa to collect her coat.

  “No, don't go yet,” Lucien said. “I want you to stay here.” He told Simone to send in Ms. Flint, who came in with a bulging briefcase and, at seeing Hallie, a quizzical expression. Lucien introduced everyone, and gestured for Winifred to
take the chair closest to his desk.

  She planted herself firmly, and went about preparing for the interview. She'd already left her coat outside, and she was wearing a dark blue blouse with the sleeves rolled up and a full skirt that fell all the way to mid-shin. Without asking if it was okay, she pushed some of Lucien's papers away from the edge of the desk, then dragged a cassette recorder out of her briefcase and put it in their place. She flicked it on and hovered over it, to see that it was working, then pulled out a ringed notepad and a pen.

  “I like to make sure I have a complete record of the interview,” she explained.

  Lucien, though he didn't like being tape-recorded anymore than he liked being photographed, let it go.

  “Just so I know who I'm dealing with,” Winifred said, a touch of distaste in her voice, “may I ask what Ms. Patton's role is here? Is she a public relations consultant?”

  “No, she's not,” Lucien said, before adding, “she's my girlfriend.” He knew this would really get Winifred Flint's goat.

  “Your girlfriend?” she said, as if the expression alone were absurd enough. “Does she always sit in on your business meetings? Or did you just ask her here today to testify that you have a personal life and that you're not just some ruthless, unfeeling tycoon?”

  Hallie, her back up, was about to jump in when Lucien raised his hand and, smiling, said, “I asked Hallie to stay here because I want you to hear what she was just telling me. I need your help.”

  Flint looked a little surprised—which was just what Lucien wanted—and Hallie looked downright dumbfounded.

  “You want me to tell her about the party?” Hallie said.

  “Yes.” To Winifred he said, “I'll answer any questions you want to put to me. I wouldn't have granted you this interview if I didn't intend to do that. Would I?”

  “No,” Winifred said, warily, “probably not.”

  “And this company has always given you full access and information whenever you requested it?”

  “For the most part.”