by Ann Charles
I hesitated, my foot on the first step of the iron stairway, the cold railing under my palm. This was what I was born to do. Shouldn’t I feel more puffed up about facing yet another foe? Then I remembered Aunt Zoe mentioning that being scared would keep me on my toes, and I started up after her with Doc on my heels.
At the top step, I heard the jingle of keys.
“Here we go,” Aunt Zoe said and the lock clinked. She unhooked the padlock and turned the knob. The door opened without a single creak oddly enough. Complete darkness waited for us on the other side of the threshold, along with whatever it was I could hear mouth-breathing inside. Sheesh, bulldogs rasped less.
Then the clacking sound started up again.
Damn it, how did I know that sound? A memory of climbing narrow wooden stairs flashed through my mind.
Aunt Zoe flicked her lighter, holding the flame under the bundle of twigs. It flared to life and then eased to a pungent, smoking glow. She stepped inside, leading with the burning twigs.
Doc followed me inside.
“Here.” She handed him another bundle of twigs and lit those as well. “Keep this between you and the lidérc at all times.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“Birch twigs mixed with some incense. Normally it’s used to prevent a lidérc from entering one’s dwelling, but I’ve also read you can use it to keep the creature at bay.”
“Where’s mine?” I asked.
“You don’t get one.”
“Why not?”
“Because, Executioner, you have a war hammer.”
Oh, yeah. I lifted it, readying for battle. “Let’s go.”
“Which way?” she asked me.
Which way? I thought she was the fearless leader here.
Then I remembered that she couldn’t hear it like I could. I pointed to a narrow hallway on the far side of the open room. “Back there.”
Stepping aside, she nudged me forward. She shined her flashlight over my shoulder, lighting the way as we crept across the old wooden floor. It creaked unbelievably loud with every step, letting our host and probably half of the folks on this side of Lead know we were coming.
I followed the clacking sound down the hall, noticing a black spot on the wall at one point. That must be where Reid had seen the lidérc disappear.
Then I noticed several other black spots along the walls.
Or maybe it wasn’t the place Reid had mentioned.
We passed three darkened rooms, pausing at the doorway of each to shine a light in them while Aunt Zoe sprinkled something along the threshold. One was an old kitchen, ancient looking sink and stove still in place. Another was the bathroom with an old chain-pull style toilet with the tank on the wall, no bathtub or mirror. The other had a broken down iron bedframe in it and plenty of dust bunnies and critter droppings. All of them smelled musty, full of stale air.
The clacking sound continued.
Dominoes? I used to play them a lot with my brother, building long trains of upright dominoes to knock down.
No, that wasn’t it.
We stopped on the threshold of the final room, this one twice the size of the others. It was empty except for a wooden chair sitting dead center.
Had the lidérc somehow slipped passed us? Moved through the walls?
I focused, slowing my breath, closing my eyes, listening.
The clacking sound started up again, louder now. The rancid odor of rotting flesh wafted over my skin, making me gag.
It was right in front of us.
I opened my eyes, seeing nothing yet but that empty chair.
My grip tightened on the handle of the war hammer. “It’s here,” I said, not bothering to whisper. No use playing hide and seek anymore. “I can smell it.”
I heard Doc sniff a couple of times. Was he picking it up, too? Or had he caught the scent of something else hiding in here with my prey?
“You need to call it out,” Aunt Zoe instructed.
I’d sooner call this whole thing off and get her and Doc out of here. Instead, I obeyed like a good little killer.
“Show yourself, lidérc,” my voice sounded a lot tougher than I felt at the moment. If only I could see what I was dealing with instead of feeling my way around its lair.
No sooner had that thought finished when I noticed movement in the far corner.
“Over there,” I said, pointing it out to Aunt Zoe.
She swung her flashlight toward the corner, but the beam went dark before reaching it.
“Damn it,” Aunt Zoe smacked it a couple of times.
“Doc, light it up,” I said.
The clacking grew even louder.
A memory of shafts of sunlight shining through windows popped into my head.
Doc lifted his light, shining it toward the corner.
His flashlight died, too, leaving only an imprint in my mind of something huddled back there.
I heard more scuffling sounds. Was it coming closer?
“Fuck,” I whispered, reaching behind me. “Aunt Zoe, your lighter. Now!”
Her handoff was quick. I flicked the lighter, the flame shedding a flickering light around the room. It was still empty except for the chair. How could that be?
From out of nowhere, a putrid breeze blew out the flame.
Aunt Zoe hauled me backward, stepping in front of me. In the darkness, I could see the embers in her bundle of smoldering twigs.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to pull her aside so I could get back in front.
She didn’t budge. “Nice try, trickster,” she said to whatever was hidden in the darkness. “You heard her, show yourself.”
Light flared from something Aunt Zoe held up in front of her. It blazed white, turning everything pale gray, making me squint and shield my eyes for a second.
There was a low hissing sound that grew almost deafening and then stopped.
The floor creaked behind me. Doc’s hand clamped onto my shoulder. At least I hoped it was Doc.
“Scharfrichterrrrrrrrrr,” I heard something say on a breath, followed by another putrid breeze.
Whatever Aunt Zoe had lighting up the room faded to a dim glow.
I squeezed around Aunt Zoe, leading with the war hammer as I stepped into the room. I flicked the lighter again. The flame painted the walls with a rippling yellowish glow.
The clacking returned, more rhythmic this time.
“I can hear it,” Doc said.
“Me too.” Aunt Zoe said. “It reminds me of your …” I heard her quick intake of breath. “Give me the lighter, Violet.”
I handed it to her. With smoldering birch twigs held out in front of her in one hand, the lighter in the other, she walked to the middle of the room and then stopped. Her eyes were wide, but her hands were steady.
“Show yourself,” she ordered again, saying something in a foreign tongue that I didn’t understand.
Back in the corner, something formed suddenly at the edge of the shadows. It was huddled low, its curved back toward us, a cloak shielding it from view. As it moved slightly, the clacking sound came again. Little white stones fell onto a black cloth next to its bare, dirty feet. The clacking stopped. I watched as long bony fingers snaked out, collecting the stones. Then the clacking sounded again.
White stones.
Wait! Not stones.
“Hidden danger,” said a rickety voice from my past.
“Oh, God. No.” My knees began to tremble, my breath coming fast and hard suddenly. “Not her.”
The memory of climbing the narrow, wooden stairs played through my vision again, followed by a beam of afternoon sunlight streaming through the attic window. The clacking of rune stones, the scratchy sound of her voice, the rattling of breath in her lungs.
That’s why I knew that clacking sound. It haunted my childhood memories, along with my great grandmother’s yellowed nails and gnarled fingers.
“Come closer, child,” Grandma-great spoke again from the corner in her rusty voice, her b
ack still bent, shielding her from me. She cast the rune stones. Her gnarled fingers waved over them, picking up the one that had always shown in Merkstave when I was in the room with her.
“You smell of death, Violet,” she whispered. She turned her head slowly toward me, giving me a glimpse of tendrils of gray hair, the edge of her craggy cheek, and the glitter of her eye.
Aunt Zoe’s flame flickered out, pitching us into darkness.
Silence filled my ears like cotton balls.
And then someone shrieked.
Chapter Twenty
The shrieking stopped.
All was dark around me, except for the lone flame of a white candle that flickered and danced.
You smell of death. I heard the echo of those words fly past me in the darkness.
Then I realized my eyes were closed.
I opened them and found myself far away from the second floor of the Sugarloaf Building.
In front of me, dust particles swirled in the bright rays of sunlight shining in through an attic window. The air around me was warm, almost stifling, filled with the scent of stale varnish and musty cardboard. I was back in the attic I knew so well from my childhood nightmares.
And I wasn’t alone.
Across the room, out of reach of the sunlight, my great grandmother sat huddled, her silver-haired head lowered, a black cloth at her feet. Her rune stones clattered as she shook them in her deerskin bag. Her breath rattled in her old lungs, extra loud in the quiet room. With her face veiled in shadows, she dumped the bag of rune stones onto the black cloth.
“What do the stones say, child?” Her long, gnarled fingers waved over them.
I didn’t need to see those damned rune stones. I already knew. “They say that I carry hidden danger in my pocket.”
Her narrow, watery eyes looked my way, glittering out from the shadows. Her silver hair hung loose around her face, helping to hide the craggy furrows in her age-spotted cheeks. Cheeks that I was always forced to kiss when she came to visit.
“Come closer, child. Let me comfort you.”
A bark of laughter rang out through the room. My bark, laden with scorn. “You made a mistake,” I told her.
“The rune stones are prophetic, child. There is no right or wrong in their songs.”
“I’m not talking about the stones.”
I took a step forward and stood bathed in the sunlight. There was no warmth in it. Just as there was no attic and no great grandmother. The lidérc was trying to woo me, only for some reason it had its wires crossed. This was my memory all right, but any grieving for this particular dead relative was done by Aunt Zoe, not me.
She stood and took a step toward me, which brought her partly out of the shadows. She opened her arms wide, urging me to bridge the distance and accept her parasitic embrace. “So young and so wise. You make me proud, Enkelin.”
My right hand gripped the war hammer handle, ready to swing if she lunged at me. “Your time here is finished.”
“My time?” Her raspy chortle was spot on with that from my childhood nightmares. Goosebumps rose on my skin. “What do you know of my time, child?”
“I know that your clock is about to stop.”
Her watery eyed gaze held mine. “You are no timekeeper.”
“You’re correct. I’m not the timekeeper.” Then I thought back to that voice on the phone in Ms. Wolff’s apartment and what it had told me. “I’m her killer.”
I didn’t believe that, but it sounded tough when facing off with a tricky Hungarian devil.
Her gaze widened, her pupils growing larger, her eyes filling with an empty blackness. Her gnarled hands rose in my peripheral vision, her fingers wiggling as if each hand were playing an invisible piano.
What in the hell was this? Part of the enchantment game used on prey? Or maybe a distraction technique.
“I’ve missed you, sweet child. Come to me.”
“Your mistake, you old Hungarian asshole, was choosing the shape of the wrong dead relative.” Without further preamble, I pounced, swinging the pointed end of the war hammer at her.
But she was faster. My hammer swooshed through the air where she’d been a split-second prior. A black shadow flew past me, sprinkling burning embers in its wake that died before hitting the floor.
She left me in a cloud of smoke reeking of the same odor I’d noticed earlier. Coughing, gagging slightly, I strode after the tricky devil. She hovered mid-air in the far corner, surrounded by billows of smoke. My great-grandmother’s face morphed before my eyes.
“Dear sister,” Susan spoke from the smoke swirls. “I’ve missed you so.”
I had to give the lidérc credit where credit was due. It had nailed the image of Susan that I had stored in my memory, with her perfect body, bitter smile, and resentful glare.
“Well done,” I said. “But wrong again. That bitch isn’t dead.” I lifted the war hammer. “But I’d love to take a swing at her.”
She rushed me, surging forward exactly as Reid had described back in Aunt Zoe’s kitchen. I dodged sideways, striking out when she flew past. The sharp point of my war hammer made contact with something in the smoke, snagging her. I held on tight and tugged while flaming embers fell around me, yet felt cold when they landed on my cheeks.
A high pitched shriek rang in my ears. It was the same shriek I’d heard when the lights went out in that second story room of the Sugarloaf Building, right before I’d landed back in this attic.
I tugged harder, but she slipped free, coming to a halt near the top of the stairs.
Choking up on the war hammer, I glared across the attic where Susan waited for me. Her head was lowered, her long brown hair shielding her face from view as the black smoke swelled around her, swallowing her whole.
“Your days of leeching are over,” I said, trying to figure out where to land a blow that would knock the thing out of the air. “Ottó didn’t deserve the years of hell you unleashed on him.”
In the smoke, a face started to take shape. I frowned, trying to figure out who was next on this nut-ball version of This Is Your Life. I didn’t have to wait long.
Rex stepped out from the smoke, only it was the younger Rex I had known back in college. The one who had shared my bed and left me pregnant with twins.
He held his hand out for me to take. “Sweet, beautiful Violet. My love for you will never die. Come to me. Let me hold you once again.”
A howl of cynical laughter burst from my chest before I could stop it. “You picked Rex? Really!!?” I shook my head, flummoxed and chagrined at the same time. “I thought you were supposed to woo me, not piss me off.”
The perplexed expression on Rex’s handsome young face made me laugh again.
“Fine, I’ll play,” I told it. “Rex, you lousy piece of shit. I’ve been waiting for this moment for ten long years.” With a battle cry, I rushed it, war hammer cocked back. It rose toward the ceiling, dripping sparks and burning embers onto the attic floor. But before I could get close enough to make contact, it flew down the stair steps, fleeing through the lower door.
I raced after it, shoving out through the attic door … and into the cold, shadow-filled Sugarloaf Building. The change in scenery made me skid to a stop, all senses on alert. Within the blink of an eye, I’d returned. I spun around, searching for the lidérc. More importantly, where were Aunt Zoe and Doc?
A soft orange glow lit the room, leaking in through the thick plastic covering the windows. Wind whistled a tune of cold loneliness. The place was empty except for me.
Hold up.
My gaze returned to the plastic. There’d been no plastic on the upstairs windows, only on the downstairs. I glanced around, getting my bearings. Sure enough, this was the level we’d checked out while Reid led the way.
As that thought sank in, footfalls clomped across the ceiling, followed by a shout of surprise. Was that Doc?
“Doc!” I heard Aunt Zoe yell. “Get back here! Hurry!”
Oh, shit!
I race
d to the door, but it wouldn’t budge. What the hell? We hadn’t locked it when we’d left.
More shouting came from overhead followed by the heavy clomping of footfalls across the ceiling. Was it chasing them?
A deep, resonating roar thundered, rattling my heart along with the windows in their frames. Criminy! I had to get up there.
I looked down at the war hammer still clutched in my hands.
Well, duh.
Spinning it around so the pointed end faced the door, I took a solid swing. The steel tip pierced the weathered wood. I tugged it free and swung again, cracking the wood this time. With another tug, I freed the hammer and lifted it overhead. This time when I swung, the steel bashed through the door.
I stuck my hand outside, angling around for the door handle.
Someone grabbed my wrist.
I shouted in surprise and tried to yank my hand back inside.
“Sparky, it’s me.” A familiar voice said from the other side of the wood, holding tight.
Reid! “You’re awake.”
“Yeah, with one hell of a jaw ache thanks to your aunt.”
Something slammed upstairs.
Crap! “Open the door!” I yelled. “Hurry! Aunt Zoe’s in trouble.”
He let go of me. The door rattled, the handle made a clanking sound, and then the door flew wide.
I raced past Reid, making a beeline for the second story stairway, not bothering with an explanation. There was no time.
Taking the iron stairs two at a time, I rammed my way into the upper apartment. A flashlight lay on the floor in the middle of the empty room, spotlighting the opposite wall. At the edge of the light was the hallway, a path into the darkness beyond.
All was silent except for the whistling wind.
“Aunt Zoe?” I called out, heading for the hallway opening.
“Violet!” Her voice came from the other end of the hall. At least I hoped it was her voice and not an imitation.
