Then something amazing happened. I got a message from Elly with some unexpected news. She had located an online group of other people around the world, who had encountered the shades. I sent a hurried answer asking for more information.
It was a super secret group, she replied, but if I was interested, she would submit my name and a little information to them. If they chose to invite me, then I would be part of it. She couldn’t tell me much more other than she was a member.
I sat back in surprise. There were more of us. Thank heavens. I sent a quick note telling Elly to send them my information. I would be thrilled to learn more about their encounters with the shades.
Maybe there was some hope.
As I made notes to share with Gavin, I got a phone call from Detective Moss. Leery, I accepted it and said, not charitably, “What’s up, Moss?”
“Just a courtesy call. I wanted to tell you that you’re no longer a person of interest.”
“Oh, that’s good news. So, I guess this means Roger’s death was an accident.” I was glad to have this settled. I knew the funeral was this coming weekend, so I figured the deputies had reached a conclusion.
“An accident, but not the one we expected. It looks like he committed suicide or an accidental overdose. Given the quantity of amphetamines in his blood, I don’t think it could have been accidental, but you never know.”
The news shocked me. I’d never thought Roger was a drug-user, but then I didn’t know him well enough to say. It could have explained some of his behavior. I guess if his girlfriend broke up with him and I’d rejected him, then maybe he’d dropped into a well of depression he couldn’t escape.
“Thanks for letting me know, Moss,” I said with sincere sorrow. “He was a bit of a jerk, but he wasn’t all bad. It’s a sad ending.”
I dropped onto the couch and thought about the guy I’d danced with at a wedding a little over a year ago. He’d seemed like a pretty nice guy and I might have dated him if I hadn’t met Mark. Strange how little things change your life. A random fall, a handsome doctor, and an unexpected psychic ability. Nothing was the same as it was a year and three months ago.
I stared at the puzzle box sitting in the middle of Gavin’s coffee table. While I’d heard all about it, this was the first time I’d seen the old box with so many pieces. A beautiful piece of work, the yellowish ivory sticks had been intricately carved, cut, and notched to create the box. About four inches cubed, it was a work of art and incredibly valuable. I imagined it was also delicate.
If you opened it correctly, the whole thing came apart to reveal the contents inside. It wasn’t easy to work out the correct combination, but Gavin had done it when he’d found it. As he’d told me the first time we’d talked about it, he wished he hadn’t opened it. After he’d done that, yiaiwas started appearing on the Earth and he felt the two were connected.
Looking at it now, I felt malevolence emanating from it. I didn’t want to touch it. Some objects reflect the vileness of their purpose, but this box looked innocent. Carefully carved ivory, neatly fitted together, it appeared to hold a valuable treasure. But it was created to imprison pure evil.
“I don’t like that box,” I said simply.
“I know,” Gavin answered. He wore latex gloves, as did Orielle who sat in the armchair at the right end of the table. “In spite of that, we need to learn everything we can from it.”
“We may have,” I answered, circling around the table to sit on the sofa directly in front of it. “Possibly, we can learn how it was made. Is that important? We know why, most likely. What more can we learn?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “That and maybe nothing. But maybe we can learn how it worked to capture the demon. Look, it’s an unsettling object, I get that. I know it upsets you. But it’s also important. If you can get anything from it, then—“
“Then I have to subject myself to it, possibly getting revolting images, and live with that memory, whether I like it or not.” My voice reflected my bitterness. I’d told him I wanted nothing to do with it, yet here we were. I’d come over thinking I could do this. Now, faced with it, I wasn’t so sure.
Orielle turned her head away from us, not wanting to be a part of this little dispute, no doubt. At least she didn’t leap in and toss her opinion in with Gavin’s.
“Can you read objects, Orielle?” I asked.
She turned her gaze back to me. “No, not like you can. I can sense a little of the energy of the object, but I don’t get images or impressions.”
I nodded toward the box. “What do you sense from this?”
“Something dark and foul. Nothing like what the box looks like.”
I turned my eyes to Gavin. “Did you feel anything from it when you picked it up the first time?”
He shifted nervously, swallowing hard as his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Not really. It felt warm to my touch... or maybe even hot. But I didn’t get a sense of evil from it. I was excited and intrigued.” He looked away from me.
“Pour me a glass of your best Irish,” I said. “If I’m going to do this, I need fortification.”
He complied without question, bringing out a tray of Irish whiskey, three glasses, and a bowl of ice. He poured one, added two cubes of ice, and handed it to me, then he prepared the ones for Orielle and himself. We didn’t toast, but we raised our glasses in a salute and sipped.
To delay, I told him about the response from Father Garrity and asked how I should answer this message.
“Maybe you can get a face-to-face with him. We could both talk to him then, try to explain what’s going on, and what we’ve actually encountered. He might still be holding back a little, waiting for us to show our cards. It wouldn’t be unreasonable, would it?”
“No, not for you. But he’s a priest—”
“And given to more secrets than any of us in this room,” he interrupted. “He’s not going to tell us all he knows, no matter how much he trusts us. But there may be a bigger group than we know if he’s shared this knowledge with others in the Church. Possibly they know more about it than we do.”
My eyes popped wide. “Are you joking?”
“No, it’s true. They might,” Orielle said. “Often the Church knows more than most people. The Pope has heard prophecies he’s not shared with the world, although his closest advisors might know. Eventually, they may come out, but the Popes have kept, and still keep, many secrets close to their hearts.”
“This sounds like a conspiracy novel,” I said, still incredulous. “Keeping secrets?”
“Governments do it,” Gavin added. “The Catholic Church is a government. They, and likely several other countries, may have knowledge about this threat that they haven’t shared.”
“Why?”
“Think about it, chica. If they told everyone about this kind of a nightmare, what do you think would happen?”
Panic.
“People would go nuts,” I answered as I envisioned a dozen scenarios in my mind. Neighbors attacking neighbors because they thought they were possessed. People shooting at strangers, even more than they did now. End-of-the-world mania breaking out. So many different things could happen.
“That’s about it. You have to be cautious about telling people and not give too much information until you know how they’ll react. Most people see a strange post on a blog and they think the person is just a kook or a little off. Maybe the kind who sees things, like Elvis in a potato chip or the Pope in a slice of toast. But if something comes from the government or the Church, then people are going to take notice.”
“It’s like we are sitting on a time bomb, Gillian,” Orielle added. “Sooner or later, it is going to go off. We need to try to prevent that or there will be widespread hysteria.”
I glared at the box again. “And you think that the answer might be in that.”
Gavin shrugged. “I actually hope there’s something locked in its impressions that can help us.”
“Pour me another drink and I’ll try to psych my
self up for this.” I pushed my glass toward him and closed my eyes. Under my breath, very softly, I murmured my protection prayer that I used when I went to the transitional cemetery. I didn’t know if it would do any good, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. I knew that evil had touched the box and any defense against its influence was better than none.
I heard the tap as Gavin set my refilled glass on the table. Then I heard him murmur a protection spell also. Toward the end, I detected the scent of sandalwood and sage. Opening my eyes, I gazed at him to see he’d lit incense and was casting a spell with his hands as well as his voice.
“What one are you doing?” I asked.
He finished the spell with a clap of his hands before he answered. “Protection for the house and all in it.”
I glanced at Orielle and noticed that she was tracing a complex pattern, possibly a mandala in a book, with her finger as she concentrated. Maybe a silent spell from that. Well, I was as protected as I could get.
Taking a sip of my drink, I reached for the box with my fingertips, pulling it toward me. At first, I thought I might not get anything as I waited for any connection. I tried to clear any thoughts from my mind to allow any images to enter.
“Nothing so far. If I get anything, I’ll try to tell you what I’m getting as we go along,” I told them, shifting my arms and shoulders to try to relax.
Gavin pulled out his phone and set the record option on it. “Just so we have a documented version,” he said when I glanced at him.
I dipped my head in agreement, then closed my eyes to concentrate. As if through a fog, an image faded in. “I’m in a room. The walls look like stone and there’s a fire pit in the middle of it. A pottery kettle hangs from a stick over it. Fingers are turning a piece of ivory around and around as a man, older-looking and bearded, carves at it. I believe this is the maker of the box. He’s wearing a brown robe and a dark red shift under it. His hair is long with touches of gray. He seems to be chanting something, but I can’t make it out. The words mean nothing to me.”
A flash of light crossed my eyes and I saw a different scene. “I’m seeing a jungle-looking place, big green leaves, like a palm, lots of vegetation and a structure of roughly hewn stones made into a vault. There’s torchlight as we go inside. I see a smaller opening in the back wall, about six inches cubed.”
I heard Gavin catch his breath. It seemed loud to me. Then, I continued, “The man carrying the box slides it into the opening. The box isn’t completely sealed as he has one piece left in his hand. He packs herbs around it, not sure what kind. As they do this, a man chants...” I struggled to say the foreign words as the man said them. Then he repeated them and I attempted to say them again as close to the pronunciation and rhythm as I could. I added, “He’s repeating it over and over in a sing-song voice, kind of like a song. Oh, a poof of something like a small firework goes off and the chanting stops. The man hurriedly slides the last puzzle piece into place. Another man puts a fitted cover over the front and they seal it with some kind of mortar. As they step back, another stone is placed over the front that blends in with the rest of the wall. It’s concealed away.”
I took a deep breath, breaking the connection as I lifted one hand away to take my drink. The chant rang in my mind, the rhythm and the notes of it lodging into my brain as if it was something I needed to know.
“Did it make—” I started to say, when I was whipped back into an image. If I’d been frightened by the image I’d seen before, it was nothing compared to the one assaulting my psyche now.
People scattered everywhere, some living, most dead and partially devoured. Yiaiwas of all sizes danced among them, seizing them as they went. Howls and screams filled the air as terror reigned in the early evening light. They were literally eating the souls of the people as well as the flesh. One True Shade walked around, his image almost man-like. His deep red eyes flashed as his gaping mouth formed a spine-chilling cackle of a laugh. On some basic level, I knew it was the leader, the one who was locked away in the box. The nightmare that must be stopped!
Horrified, I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even move with the terror that swept over me. I think I might have screamed, then everything stopped.
I opened my eyes what seemed like a minute later to see Gavin’s worried expression hovering over me. The scent of an antiseptic or something like it bombarded my nose and my eyes watered. What the heck? Gavin held something in front of my nose that provided that awful smell. As I shifted to try to sit up, I realized I was stretched out on the sofa, an afghan covering me.
I pushed Gavin’s hand aside and raised up on my elbow. “What happened?”
“You fainted,” Gavin answered. “How do you feel?”
“Fainted?” Like at the chapel when I’d passed out? Why? “I think I’m okay. Maybe it was too much whiskey.”
Orielle came into the room with a glass of cold water. I hadn’t even noticed she was missing, but she must have gone as soon as I’d started waking up.
“How long was I out?” I asked as I accepted the glass from her and drank.
“About fifteen minutes,” Gavin said. “You had me worried, Gillian. Are you feeling more normal now?”
“Almost. I’m still a little confused and feeling off. But everything else seems fine.” I sat up, mulling over the reason for the faint. Had one of the shades in the vision seemed to touch me? Was it the sheer horror of it?”
I had no doubt the first part of the vision was part of the ritual of sealing the monster in the tomb.
As I pulled my thoughts together, I asked to listen to the playback of the session. I listened intently as I described everything I saw and smiled sheepishly at the attempt to repeat the chant in the sing-song rhythm. The recording went silent after the block of stone was replaced. “What happened to the rest?” I asked.
“That’s where you stopped,” Gavin said. “You were talking and stopped dead at the point you just heard, then your eyes went wide and you looked like you were in shock. That lasted a minute or so before you slumped forward. Your fingers shoved the box off the coffee table and your face flopped down in the middle of it, barely missing your glass, I might add.”
“Oh, jeez! I have to tell you about the rest of the vision. I was caught off guard, but my left hand was still on the box and I started getting this scene.” I spoke slowly, trying to recall the details and described the horrible event I’d been shown. Then I told them about the head demon and what I’d seen in the vision of them eating the souls.”
“True Shade, the perusak yiaiwa, soul destroyer,” Orielle whispered her eyes wide. “There’s no doubt that this reoccurrence of the yiaiwa crossing to this plane is related to the box. It sounds like the carver made it specifically to trap the demon in it and the ceremony was to seal it so it couldn’t return.”
“But it’s a small box,” I said, “and that creature was huge.” Could that small box hold it?
“Remember that it’s a spirit form,” Gavin said. “They can take as much or as little space as they need. If it entered the box, then it could shrink down, becoming more dense and solid to fill the inside. The real question is why? Why would it willingly go into the box?”
“Perhaps a trap was set?” Orielle suggested. “They had something in the box the perusak yiaiwa wanted.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t willingly,” I said. “Could the shaman who did this compel the spirit into the box? Maybe there’s a spell.”
Gavin had been crouched by the sofa as I realized the coffee table has been moved a few feet from the couch so he could squat there. Now, he straightened up and started pacing from the front door to the kitchen entrance and back as he walked. “Both are possible. What kind of lure would attract the demon? Something so tempting he couldn’t resist trying for it. That would have to be something he couldn’t get any other way. Do we have any idea what that might be?”
He swung around again, going back the other way. “The possibility of a spell of compulsion would explain it better but is
n’t any easier for us to acquire to recapture the demon. Even if we had the spell, we need to know the big yiaiwas true name. Spells like that need to be directed and exact.”
“I take it you don’t have one,” I said.
He paused, “No, I don’t. I haven’t even seen one. I may have read a couple of references to them, but no details.”
“Then we’re screwed,” I mumbled.
Gavin shot an irritated glance at me and resumed pacing.
“Perhaps not,” Orielle said after a few moments. “I might have access to a couple of banned books from Persia in the second century, B.C. The script in them included spells, some considered quite controversial and demonic.”
Gavin came to a halt. “So long as they don’t include an ingredient list starting with eye of newt, I’d like to get a look at them. Can you get them, Ori?”
“I can try. If my friend still works at the archives, I might be able to get the books or copies of the pages. I will have to go to him though.”
Gavin’s worried look changed to one of possibility as his lips curved up into a smirk. “See what you can do. In the meantime, let’s also see if there’s anything a top-level demon might want enough to risk capture.”
We talked another twenty or so minutes about the visions and I tried to fill in any visual blanks that I didn’t say as I went through. Gavin recorded it all even as he made written notes as I talked.
“I know this was a difficult thing for you to do, Gillian, but I think we’ve gotten a lot of information from the vision. The chant alone may be a key to locking the demon away again if it’s a spell of some sort. I’m going to work on translating that to see if there’s a clue in it to the perusak yiaiwa’s identity. So, thanks.”
“As long as it helps,” I replied and thought about it. It had been uncomfortable and the fainting part was worrying. But I thought the protection spell had worked and I didn’t feel as invaded as I had before. Maybe the faint was part of that protection, a way to keep me from being touched by the evil that had been in the box.
A Song of Forgiveness Page 18
