Three hours passed, and we finally went home. I had to wake Carolyn up again and wait for her to get ready. I’d forgotten that she was more of a night creature as she loudly descended my staircase, creating a head-splitting staccato melody. For a light woman, she stomped like an elephant.
“Alright, let’s do this,” she said void of emotion.
“You sure you don’t want to do a little pigment alteration or something to disguise yourself?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot in my sleepy haze.” She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her hair started to darken first this time and then her skin followed, settling on a deep brown.
I said goodbye to Colossus and patted his head before walking out the door. Carolyn put on the thickest pair of sunglasses I’ve ever seen. We jumped into my car and got out on the road. Suddenly, the weight of protecting a wanted vampire came down on me. My neck jerked around, checking the sidewalks and cars behind me, completely forgetting to watch the road.
My hands were sweating onto the frayed steering wheel, probably adding more damage to the stitched leather. My heart rate jumped and breathing became strained as I cruised down Freeport Road. “We just have to hit 910, and this farm should be right off that road. Do you want to maybe, slouch down in that seat, so you can’t be seen at all? It’s just, I normally roll solo, so anyone in my passenger seat, could set off some alarm bells.”
“I could just do this,” she said, as we approached the Hulton Bridge.
I merged into the left lane and peeked over at the passenger seat. My eyes were met by an enormous raven with purple eyes. “That is really impressive, but your head is still high enough to be seen by passersby. What happened to your clothes and sunglasses?”
“Anything attached to my body during a shift will return when I shift back. It’s all considered part of my body.”
“That’s pretty convenient.” I’d been trying my hand in the shifting game lately with mixed results. I needed a lot more practice. “Does your clan know about your raven shift?”
“Yes,” she said, and I turned to her again, but this time, she was in human form with dark skin. She slid down in the seat to avoid detection as I hooked a left onto Route 910.
I apologized, “I hate to have you do this, but the alternative is an all-out brawl with your clan.”
“You worry too much, but that’s good. My clan isn’t looking for you, they’re looking for me. They would never expect me to latch on to you. I hope.” She giggled.
“That makes two of us. How did you find out about me, anyway?”
“Are you kidding? You’re like a legend in supernatural circles around Pittsburgh. I’m surprised Jonathan didn’t try to recruit you to the clan.”
He had, I thought. “Not quite a legend, yet. Why would vampires want to recruit me?”
“Because you know magic. You’re young right now, but Jonathan sees the power you could have in just a few years. And if you became an immortal, after a couple hundred years, you would be unstoppable.”
Not necessarily. I remembered what had happened to George, the two-hundred-year-old warlock. “What are the perks of becoming a vampire? Because it doesn’t really seem all that appealing to me right now.”
“It’s got to be inside you. The beast, that is. I’ve always known it was inside me and just needed brought out by a real vampire. Lucky for me, they often recruit young women that like to party at night and if you pass all the tests, you’re in.”
“Have you ever seen a vampire turn into a mist or gas before?”
She laughed. “You’ve been watching too many movies. Magic is why Jonathan wants you. He wants to absorb your magic. Did he shake your hand when you met or put his hands on you?”
“Yes he did. He put his hand on my back when we were looking at his paintings.”
She closed her eyes and nodded rapidly. “Then he was already trying to absorb some of your magic. You need to be very careful around him. He’s got psychic abilities. Telekinesis.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s told me what I was thinking before. Too bad his rage blinded him from seeing that I didn’t murder Andre. I think he did it and waited for someone to blame. He hated Andre and everyone knew it. Blaming me was all too easy. Nobody would believe me over Jonathan and even if they did, no one would stand up to him. He’s the elder.”
I asked, “Where are you going to go?”
“I’m not telling anyone. Sorry. You will still be paid in full to just get me to the airport, but nobody needs to know where I am going. It’s probably safest for everyone involved.”
We pulled into a long, dirt driveway to get to the house, and Carolyn sat up in the passenger’s seat. The winding driveway went on forever until a red barn-style house came into view with several outbuildings and storage sheds behind it.
I turned to Carolyn. “What do you want your name to be? I assume you wouldn’t want to use your real name.”
“Good assumption. How about Sarah Smith?”
I scoffed at that name. “Too plain. How about Sarah…uh Sarah Shandle?”
“Yeah, because Sarah Shandle definitely doesn’t sound like a fake name. Trust me, let’s just go with Smith. No one questions the last name Smith because they’ve heard it a hundred times before. Shandle makes you go hmmm.” She put her thumb and finger on her chin for added effect.
We got out of the car and headed toward the house.
8
We walked up the steps and onto a wooden porch with two rocking chairs on both sides of the front door. Before I had a chance to knock, the door swung open and a woman pushed the screen door toward us. I backed up a step to avoid getting hit and a short female who appeared to be in her early thirties joined us. I cleared my throat to activate my Humphrey Bogart accent.
“Hello,” she said, shaking my hand. “Rebecca Lint, nice to meet you.” She turned to Carolyn and repeated the process. We exchanged quick pleasantries and she didn’t bat a single eyelash at the name Smith.
Rebecca Lint looked up at me with dull, gray eyes, reddened and glossy. She either hadn’t slept in days, was suffering from terrible allergies, or she had recently been crying. A crimson rash covered her cheeks and neck, disappearing into the neckline of her corduroy coat. The wind picked up, causing her to secure the top two buttons of the jacket.
I hadn’t detected any magic yet, and if it wasn’t for the desperate look on her face, I might have left already. I felt for her plight, but this was shaping up to be another letdown. “Do you want to show us what you were talking about on the phone?”
“Sure. Well, my husband will. I don’t go out there anymore. Maybe I will with you two here. I told him not to get in the shower, but he wouldn’t listen. I’ll go get him.” The screen door slammed shut as Rebecca Lint dragged her boots across the hardwood floors leaving a swooshing sound.
I turned to Carolyn/Sarah, “I’m not detecting anything here.”
“Really? I’m feeling some strange vibes. It’s really subtle, but I think there is something here.”
A murmuring caught my attention as Rebecca and her husband came out onto the porch. The tall man with a broken right arm extended his left hand. I awkwardly shook the man’s hand, and he said, “Roy Lint, thanks for coming out.”
I said, “Mike Merlino. It’s a pleasure. Do you want to show us what you were talking about now?”
He ignored my question, turned to my partner, and shared an awkward handshake with Carolyn. “Roy Lint.”
“My name’s Sarah. Nice to meet you.”
Roy said, “Just follow me.” He sidestepped down the porch stairs, presumably due to his enormous feet. Roy Lint was a giant of a man with a big, fluffy beard. He wore Carhartt camouflage pants, a matching jacket and a bright orange hunting hat. He’d be a perfect Paul Bunyan on Halloween.
He walked with a limp as he led us behind the house toward a series of small barns, sheds and buildings. We headed toward the second outbuilding on the left. He said, “I h
ope you two are ready because you never know what is going to happen.”
I doubted the warning was necessary considering I still hadn’t felt anything out of the ordinary.
Everything changed once we got within about twenty yards from the outbuilding. I felt a punch inside my chest that turned into someone using my heart as a speedbag.
I’d never experienced anything like this and peeked over at Carolyn, but I couldn’t get a read on her with those enormous sunglasses hiding her eyes. It wasn’t discernable as dark or pure magic. I truly didn’t know what we were dealing with here, but it was powerful.
The punching feeling finally stopped but now my stomach felt like a cement mixer, churning and churning. A fetid stench attacked my nostrils and grew stronger with each step toward the red and white barn. Nobody said a word and I was pretty sure everyone was in the same boat as me. Scared.
We approached the door of the barn with a simple latch lock holding it closed. I felt the energy seeping through the wood, trying to escape. “Do you want me to open it?” I asked, pointing to his arm in the sling.
He gave me a thumb’s up with his good hand. “Sure, just be careful.”
I nodded. I’d handled stuff like this before, but my arm shook as I grabbed the latch. The doors started to protrude toward me, threatening to bust the latch, and my eyes widened. “Why don’t you guys get over there?” I gestured to a safer area off to the side.
I planned to flip the latch open and run to the side before the escaping spirit could envelop me and sweep me away. I held my palm up and placed it on the bottom of the latch. I steeled my nerves and flicked my hand upward.
Opening my heavy eyes, I saw three people I didn’t recognize kneeling around me.
A female voice said, “He’s alive. Oh, thank God, he’s alive.” She made eye contact with me. “We thought you were dead. Are you feeling all right?”
I slowly started to regain my wits and smelled burnt flesh. Oh yeah, I was with a vampire looking into a haunted barn. “What happened?” I asked as I sat up and looked at the remnants of two shattered barn doors lying ten feet from where they belonged.
Roy said, “As soon as you opened those doors, there was a loud blast that blew you back about…hell this must be about fifteen feet or so. It was the red gas this time what escaped when you opened them doors.”
The two ladies helped me to my feet but I didn’t feel any pain. More than anything, I felt tired. “Do you mind if I go in?”
Rebecca squeaked, “Are you sure you want to?”
My delirious mental condition would have caused me to walk through the gates of hell right now. I staggered into the barn and the foul odor was gone. I searched around the empty storage facility and it was spooky, but the darkness had left.
Roy entered the barn with a glowing lantern. “Need some light?”
I waved him off. “I don’t think we’ll need that. Whatever was in here is gone now. Why don’t we start this story from the top? Outside, of course.”
We walked out of the barn and into the sunny day. The four of us sat down at a picnic table under a huge apple tree.
Roy picked at some of the peeling paint on the table. “We bought this place about four months ago. Guy who sold it to us said there were some antique boxes out in that barn you were just in. Said we could keep them and sell them if we want. Sounded like a good deal at the time.” He pointed with his head toward his wife. “What was it, only about a month before all the stuff started happening.”
Rebecca added, “If it was even that long.”
Roy continued, “Strange stuff started happening. Shelves and tables shaking, knocking stuff to the ground and breaking. And that barn. I don’t know how she’s still standing from all the shaking and noises that came from that thing. I don’t get spooked too easy, but this was something different. Then, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack, even though he was healthy as a damn bull. And my damn arm.”
I asked, “Yeah, what happened there?”
His big beard bounced up and down as he talked, “Bookshelf in the house fell on me and I tried to deflect it with my arm at the last second. Plus, there’s all the stuff that happened to her.”
“There’s more?” I asked, intrigued.
Rebecca said, “That’s just the start. Our two dogs disappeared. I lost my job due to downsizing and got this rash all over my body that just won’t go away.”
Carolyn jumped in. “I noticed the ‘for-sale’ sign on our way in. I guess you two have had enough?”
Rebecca said, “Absolutely. We’re even thinking about staying somewhere else until it sells. We want to have kids and there’s no way we’re raising them here.”
This would not be a good place for inquisitive children. “I understand that. Are the boxes still in this barn?”
Roy said, “Nope. Once I figured out that they were causing all the commotion, I buried them in the backyard. I looked up some stuff on the internet and they said I needed to bury the spirits so they couldn’t escape.”
Carolyn asked, “Were the boxes open when you looked at them the first time?”
Roy shook his head. “First time I looked at them, they were closed. When I took them out to bury them, they were all open.”
I had an idea of what these boxes were, but it wasn’t my area of expertise. “Can you show us where you buried the boxes?”
“Yep, they are right over there,” Roy said, and pointed to an open field.
We got up from the table and trekked about a hundred yards away from the haunted barn. The heart punching came back along with my tightened stomach, twisting and turning. We approached a fissure in the ground about a foot wide. I took a wild guess that it wasn’t man made.
Roy explained, “I buried them and then came out here one day and seen this crack in the land leading right up to the boxes. The hole for the boxes had been dug up too just like it is now.”
Dirt had been scattered in every direction and I could see some of the boxes in the five by five-foot hole. I reached down into the pit and grabbed one of the ornate boxes. A fiery feeling pulsed around my fingertips and I yanked my hand away.
My shaky hand touched another box, checking the heat level, and this one was cold. I pulled the wooden box out of the ground and wiped it off. The rectangular object had two doors that swung open when I stood it up. I pushed them closed and swung the little lock between both door handles to hold it shut. It looked like a tiny, ornate cabinet.
Rebecca asked, “Do you have any idea what it is?”
I paused for a moment. “I’m pretty sure I do.”
Carolyn cut in. “It’s a Dybbuk Box.”
I turned to her. “That’s what I think too.”
Rebecca asked, “What’s a Dybbuk Box?”
Carolyn took the lead. “Basically, the box is used to trap the spirit of an ancient mythological demon from Jewish culture. Normally, it is a wandering soul that terrorizes humans.”
I didn’t want to tell them these boxes were probably infested, and we would need to excise the escaped demons from their property.
Roy wondered, “Why would anyone do that?”
Carolyn answered, “The spirits are usually summoned by desperate people who are willing to do anything. How many boxes are there?”
“Twelve,” Roy said.
I needed to do some more research. “Do you mind if I take a few with me?”
Roy immediately agreed, “Take ‘em all. Anything that doesn’t leave with you is going to get burned later on tonight.”
“I’ll probably just need a few of them to find out where they came from.” I turned to Carolyn, and lowered my voice. “Don’t touch any of the boxes. I’m going to take them to Jonathan to find out what they are all about. He knows antiques pretty well it seems.”
She held her hands up and nodded as I pulled a few of the boxes from the ditch. Stacking three on the ground, I picked them up and Roy followed me with another. We stashed them in the trunk of my car and went back to the
front porch to talk to the couple.
“I’m going to find out what I can about the boxes and I’ll try to chase them away so you don’t have to worry about moving away. However, we need to talk about prices.” I hated this part. “In this business, each case is different so prices can be somewhat tricky.”
Carolyn said bluntly, “Just tell them about your standard removal rates. Stop trying to give everyone a deal. They just want to get rid of this problem, right?”
Roy said, “Yeah, yeah, we’re not looking to rip you off and this will save us money by not having to sell the house. How confident are you that you can take care of the problem?”
“If it turns out to be what I think it is, yes, we can handle it. The standard removal fee for all this will be one thousand dollars,” I said, and waited for a reaction.
Rebecca immediately said, “Fine, yeah, take care of it then. From broken dishes to medical bills, these things have cost us enough money already. It needs to stop.”
I smiled on the inside that she didn’t haggle with me. “All right then. I will be in contact with you as soon as I find out more information.”
Roy said, “Thank you.” We exchanged another awkward handshake and the couple went back inside.
We got in the car and slowly rolled down the driveway. “Why are you messing around with all this for only a thousand dollars?”
I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a hundred dollars, much less a grand. “For some of us, a thousand dollars for a few day’s work is pretty good.”
She argued, “Not when I’m paying you sixty times that to just hang out with me.”
“Sixty-one thousand is better than sixty.”
“That explosion must have blasted you harder than I thought if you are willing to mess with that stuff for only a thousand bucks. You’re not very smart, wizard.”
I defended myself, “I took an oath to protect the city. If this turns out to be bigger than just some people on a farm getting terrorized, I need to take action. I don’t think you’ll understand, but it’s my obligation.”
She slid down in the seat as we approached the end of the driveway. “You’re a good young man. Stupid, but good.”
Graveyard Uprisings Page 6
