Incubi - Edward Lee.wps

by phuc

  Her carrier stopped beside the second cloaked figure. The candles sizzled slightly. They were black and crudely fashioned, releasing an oily fetor to the damp air. Veronica felt drenched in her own sweat, tremoring.

  Then another figure entered the chancel.

  Veronica stared.

  The third figure faced the altar, murmuring something like an incantation. He's praying, she thought. It reminded her of her childhood. Church. The minister standing with his back to the congregation as he spoke the offertory and raised the sacraments. But this figure was no minister, and it was not bread and wine that he raised.

  It was the black knife.

  It's Khoronos, Veronica realized.

  "Pater terrae," he whispered, though the whisper rang like a metal bell in the dank, underground church. "Accept these meager gifts so that we may remain worthy in your sight."

  "World without end," incarnated the two others.

  "To you we give our faith forever."

  "Accept our gifts. Sanctify us and keep us safe..."

  Khoronos turned, his hooded faced diced by candlelight. His hands clasped the earthen jar to his chest.

  "Welcome, Veronica," he whispered very softly.

  His cassock came unsashed.

  Veronica screamed.

  No penis could be seen between Khoronos' legs. There was only a severed stump peeking out above the testicles.

  «« »»

  "What should I do?"

  Craig was starting to get addled. He poured two Windex shooters for a pair of dolts with glasses, then came back to her. "How can I tell you what to do if you don't tell me what's going on?"

  "You'd never believe me," Faye muttered.

  "Whatever he's off doing, don't worry about it."

  How could she not worry? Jack was alone, against uncertain odds. "I'll call his partner, Randy."

  "Jack can take care of himself," Craig said. He had three taps running and was mixing drinks at the same time, somehow without spilling a drop. "That's your problem, Faye. You never have faith in anyone."

  The statement slapped her in her face. "How the hell do you know!" she objected loudly enough to turn a few heads.

  "I'm a barkeep, Faye. Barkeeps know everything." He grinned, lit a Marlboro. "How can you expect to have faith in people when you don't even have faith in yourself?"

  Faye stared through the brazen comment. But was he right? Why couldn't she just leave things be? Jack had to know what he was doing better than she did.

  Craig was jockeying; the bar was full now, standing room only. Lots of rowdy regulars, and lots of couples. A row of girls sat up at the bar, to fawn over Craig, and right next to Faye was a guy in a white shirt writing something on a bar napkin. Suddenly he looked at her. Faye recognized the shattered look in his eyes. It was the same look she'd seen in Jack's eyes the first night she met him. It was the same look she'd seen in her own for a year. Broken pieces. "My girlfriend broke up with me tonight," the guy drunkenly lamented. "I was going to marry her."

  "Sorry to hear it," Faye offered.

  The broken pieces glimmered. "I still love her," he said.

  Eventually two friends took him out of the bar; he was clearly too drunk to drive. But he left the napkin he'd been writing on. Faye glanced at it. It's a poem, she realized.

  It read: My gut feels empty, my heart is black. I'd do anything to have you back. So shall it be you've cut the tether, but my love for you goes on forever.

  Faye could reckon this, despite the bad verse. For a year, her heart felt black, her gut felt like a bottomless pit of loss. Did Jack feel the same way now? Was that why he'd rushed to find Veronica? Or had she really been tricked by murderers?

  She admitted the odds were just too wild. But the name, she reminded herself. The word.

  Khoronos.

  Craig frowned when some man with banged hair swaggered in. He wore boots up to his knees, and a black T-shirt with an abstract picture on it. "Veronica Polk," the shirt read. "The Pickman Gallery."

  "Thanks for the nickel tip the other night, Stewie," Craig said. "The door's that way."

  The guy shoved out a ten. "Just get me a drink."

  Faye approached him. "Are you Stewie, Jack's friend?"

  Stewie laughed. "Let's just say an acquaintance. Friend seems a bit of an overstatement."

  "And you're also Veronica's agent?"

  Stewie peered at her. "That's right. She disappeared last week. Jack was supposed to find her, but it figures he never came through."

  "Yesterday he found out where Khoronos lives," Faye stated.

  Stewie's eyes spread over his drink. "How..."

  "He's on his way there now."

  Suddenly Stewie was frantic. "What do you know about it?"

  "Everything," Faye said.

  After that, she said a lot more.

  «« »»

  "Goddamn!" Jack yelled. He was parked off the shoulder, motor running. The minute he'd gotten what he thought was the right grid, he got lost. The TI-DM kept spitting out the wrong frames.

  Every county police vehicle now was fitted with a data monitor, a simple LCD system that was uplinked to the county mainframe. It sported a small screen and keyboard, and was manufactured by Texas Instruments. With it, an officer could run an MVA or warrant check without having to wait for dispatcher processing. An officer could also run any street address in the county and bring up the proper map grid on the screen. But so far Jack had punched up the address and locate-command three times and had gotten three different grids.

  "Piece of shit!" he yelled, and smacked the wheel. He entered the address again and got another wrong frame. If the computer was down, the screen would say so. It could also be what they called a "bad lay" some aspect of the terrain obstructing the radio relay but that only happened in the snow or during a thunderstorm. Tonight, though, the sky was crystal clear.

  It goddamn figures, he thought. There were some high forest belts up this way, and some mountains. Maybe the signal was bouncing. He drove up to higher ground, then punched up the address again. The screen flashed another wrong grid. Again, he felt thwarted, that fate or bad luck or something was deliberately standing in his way. At this rate, I'll have to sequence the entire grid system frame by frame, he thought, wanting to be sick. Khoronos' address must be on a pipestem that was not on the paper map. But it would have to be on the computer; the geographic survey was upgraded every day. So where the hell was it?

  One more time, he decided. This time he got a notorious relay malfunction called a "slide"; the screen flashed an entire grid block twelve different frames in a few seconds. "Motherless piece of shit!" he yelled. He wanted to punch the screen or rip the whole system out and leave it in the street.

  He lit a Camel and let his anger beat down. Then he glanced at the last grid frame.

  Bingo. The screen logged the road he was on right now. The pipestem to Khoronos' lot sat just a hundred feet before him.

  This is it.

  He idled up. Here the residences sat back off the road. Long driveways led deep into the woods, and a mailbox marked each drive. Jack aimed his remote spot onto each one, checking the addresses. He could've laughed: Khoronos' address was skipped. I do not believe this shit. He backed up to the last marked drive and pulled in. As suspected, the driveway proceeded past the address on the mailbox.

  "Dead End," a sign read.

  "Uh-huh," he muttered.

  He pulled past the sign, turned off the motor and the lights, and got out. By the trunk light he checked his Smith snub. The shotgun was loaded, five rounds of no. 4 buck. He slung it over his shoulder. Then he loaded six .455s into the big Webley.

  He gently closed the trunk.

  He tried to visualize himself. A suspended cop standing in the dark in some guy's driveway in the middle of the night with a riot gun slung across his back.

  What am I doing?

  It was not too late to be reasonable. He could get back into the car, drive home, and proceed with this
in a proper and professional manner.

  Sure I could, he realized. But I'm not gonna, so let's go.

  Jack began to walk up the dark road.

  «« »»

  He didn't know if he was looking at a house or some architect's idea of a bad joke. Frank Lloyd Wright would shit in his grave if he could see this, he thought. Khoronos' house looked like a futuristic castle: bright white, shutterless with gunslit windows, and configured of odd angles and lines. It stood out against the moon. The structure bothered him somehow, the trapezoidal tangents, the incongruence of its shape. Perhaps it was his imagination, but the more Jack stared at the structure's bizarre geometry, the more he saw the shades of the same occult glyphs left on the walls of three murdered women.

  He skirted around the side. Most of the windows were dark. Before the house stood a squat four-car garage. The doors were locked but there were windows in the panels. He quickly whipped out his mini-Maglite and shined it in.

  More coincidence, or was this it?

  First, there was no doubt that this was the right place. In the furthest bay he saw an orange Mercedes 450SL Ginny's car. Next were two more vehicles: a white panel van and a long black luxury sedan, a Lincoln or a Cadillac.

  Stewie had said the two guys had picked up Veronica's painting in a white van. Craig had seen a big black sedan pulling into the Undercroft the night Susan Lynn was murdered.

  Again, he faltered. Neither Stewie nor Craig had gotten tag numbers or even partials, but he doubted that mattered. The decryption of Khoronos' name, plus the white van and the black sedan spotted by witnesses, was probably enough to get a search warrant that would wash in court.

  But that would take a day, he thought. And I don't have a day.

  A high fence surrounded the backyard, beyond which stood the forest. The fence was painted glossy black. He couldn't see between the gaps. He saw no motion or pressure sensors on the fence.

  As stealthily as he could, then, he climbed over.

  Now he was standing in wavering, lazy light. A large outdoor pool filled the backyard; its submerged lights were on, which vacillated upon the rear of the house. Jack froze, tried to blend in with the fence as his eyes scanned the pool and the yard. He was alone.

  No time like the present for illegal entry. He was getting to be an expert at it these days. It was nice to know that even if he did get kicked off the force, he'd be able to burgle houses for a living. He checked every window along the lower level. More darkness. Next were a pair of French doors, any burglar's dream. He checked the lock on the knob, one of the better Qwik-Sets, but before he slipped out his pickcase, he turned the knob. Some security, he thought. The door was unlocked.

  Then he did the next logical thing: he entered the house.

  A line from the state annotated code seemed to haunt him: Absent additional exigent circumstances, the officer must obtain a warrant before entering any private residence without positive consent of the tenant or owner.

  Jack stalled.

  However, the officer may make a warrantless search of anything, whether personal belongings, a vehicle, or a building, provided there is probable cause to believe it necessary to save a life.

  Fuck it, he thought.

  He closed the door behind him, wiped down the knobs, and walked in. He withdrew the Smith

  .38 and proceeded.

  The downstairs search was effective and quick. He made no noise and left no prints. Only a few lights were on. The entire lower level seemed a clash in design: colonial living room, Victorian study, Tudor-style foyer. It was funny. He noticed no phones, no televisions or radios, or the like.

  He checked the kitchen last, large and contemporary. He stopped stock-still.

  On the floor lay a smashed portable cellular phone.

  And something else. A puddle. Streaks.

  Blood.

  Still wet, he saw.

  Now was when he should leave; things had added up to his legal favor. Khoronos' name, the black sedan, and now wet blood. He should exit the house immediately, retreat to the car, and radio for help. As for probable cause, he could lie to the judge and prosecutor, tell them that he saw the blood from the outside, through the kitchen window, then he wouldn't have to beat the shaky physical entry. He'd merely tell them he'd never entered the house. But if he was going to do that, he'd have to get out right now, before he might be seen. And...

  He looked down at the blood.

  It might be Veronica's blood.

  He put the Smith snub in his pocket and unslung the shotgun.

  It's time to stop fucking around.

  He searched every room upstairs quickly and quietly. One room was the freakiest thing he'd ever seen, a room made completely of mirrors. Jack didn't waste time wondering. The other five rooms were bedrooms. Veronica's was obvious: paints, brushes, a smudged palette. A single painting sat propped up to dry. "Veronica Betrothed," she'd penned on the back frame, and her name in the corner, "V. Polk." She'd painted herself in the strangest clarity, crisply naked yet stunningly abstract, holding hands with a figure of flames.

  Jack could almost feel the heat just looking at it.

  The other bedrooms were spartan and clean. In the last he found a typewriter and a story. "The Passionist" by Virginia Thiel, but no Ginny to go along with it. Where the hell is everybody? His temper raged. The whole joint's empty.

  Then he heard a quick, muffled

  Thump!

  Jack whirled, bringing the shotgun down and nearly releasing his bladder. What he faced was a closed door. And again:

  Thump!

  Jack pointed the Remington straight at the door. His heart hammered. He popped off the trigger safety with his right index finger, and

  Thumpthumpthumpthumpthump!

  and nearly squeezed off a round at the start from the next pummel of beats. It must be a closet.

  Jack turned the knob, pulled and stepped back. He stood sideways, to offer as little target mass of himself as possible, and the door keened open.

  Jack lowered the Remington. A woman, bound and gagged, lay on the closet floor. Bare legs squirmed, eyes bulged up from out of the dark. Jack stared. The woman was Ginny Thiel.

  He dropped on his knee. "Don't make a sound," he whispered. "I'm going to untie you." Ginny went lax as Jack struggled with her bonds. She wore a ripped sundress; blood streaked her legs. It was plain to see that she'd been raped.

  They'd tied her up tight as a meat bundle. He finally got the gag off, which she'd nearly chewed through.

  "Jack "

  Jack pressed his palm across her mouth. "Quiet. Talk quiet."

  She gulped, nodded.

  "You're going to be all right now. Don't worry. But I need to know what's going on."

  "I...," she murmured. "Khoronos, Gilles...aw, God..."

  "What about Khoronos? Where is he?"

  Tears flooded her eyes; she trembled at some recollection. When he got the rope off her, she lurched forward and hugged him.

  "Calm down." He pushed her wet hair off her brow. Her skin felt clammy, slick. It scared him the way she was shaking.

  "Who else is in the house, Ginny? I need to know."

  She stifled sobs into his shoulder. "All of them," she whispered.

  "Who?"

  "Khoronos, Marzen...Gilles."

  "Where's Veronica?"

  "With them, I think," she sobbed.

  With them. "Ginny, I've been through the whole house. No one's here."

  "Basement," she choked. "The room with the mirrors."

  But Jack had already seen that. What could an upstairs room have to do with the basement? She's traumatized, he thought. She doesn't know what she's saying. He'd have to find it himself.

  "Listen to me. I'll get you to a hospital real soon, but I have to find these guys first. So I want you to stay here. They think you're tied up, so they won't come back. You stay here until I come for you. All right?"

  She was still staring, half at Jack, half at memory. Eventually she nodd
ed.

  "Sit way back in the closet. Take this " he put the Smith .38 in her hand. "You hear anybody come into this room, point it up at the door. Hold it straight out with both hands. All you have to do is squeeze the trigger. You hear me?"

  She nodded again, looking at the little gun in her hand.

  "Anyone opens this door that's not me...shoot."