Vicarious

by Jon F. Merz

  Curran frowned. Where the hell was the light switch?

  A noise to his left made him jump and almost yank his gun out until he realized it was the oil burner coming on to heat water. It stayed on and loud for a few minutes before mercifully turning off, plunging the cellar back into silence.

  Curran held his hands above his head, looking for any strings dangling down from the ceiling that might be connected to a light bulb. His feet kicked something small over and there was a soft tinkle of broken glass.

  Great, that was probably priceless, thought Curran.

  He moved away from the staircase and tried keeping his back to the wall. There seemed to be too many cardboard boxes stacked against the wall for Curran to stay flush with it, but he tried anyway, still hoping to find a light.

  After ten feet, he stopped, suddenly aware that he’d begun sweating profusely. Curran knew the effort of moving carefully and quietly was taking its toll on him.

  Where was the light switch?

  He paused, sucking in a deep breath of cool air, feeling some measure of strength come back to him. A thin sliver of light penetrated the darkness further to his left.

  Curran guessed Darius must have been using dark cloth to shield the window. Curran would have loved pulling it all down so he could see what the hell he was doing, but that would be noticeable from outside in case Darius came home suddenly.

  Not that Curran really expected Darius to show up unannounced. That’s why Kwon was sitting on him.

  He moved further left. His goal was to make a complete circuit of the cellar, until he found the light switch. Barring that, he’d go back upstairs, open the door to the kitchen and maybe try to find a flashlight up there as well so he could come back and see what was what.

  Given that the windows were blocked up, maybe there was something worth looking at down here.

  Or at least he hoped there was.

  He hit a corner, shifting suddenly again to the left and feeling his way with one hand low and one hand high looking for the light. More cardboard boxes barred his way and Curran had to mold his body to contour around them.

  He kept moving.

  His foot kicked what felt like a pile of stone dust, sending it flying up everywhere. Curran caught a whiff and sneezed hard and loud.

  He froze.

  Did he hear something?

  Did someone hear him?

  He waited almost five minutes before moving again. The stone dust had settled.

  He reached another corner and began moving along the wall opposite the staircase. More boxes. More boxes.

  Curran frowned. This guy must be living out of these things, he thought.

  Another corner and Curran began to get worried. There was still no sign of a light switch anywhere. Obviously, Darius had chosen to position the stupid thing where he alone would know where to find it.

  Curran reached the last corner and found himself back by the staircase. He slumped down to a sitting position, letting his hands slide down with him.

  And scarcely believed it when his left hand found what felt like a switch by the foot of the stairs.

  He shook his head. The switch seemed to jut out from the stair tread itself, close to the wall. No wonder he’d missed it the first time.

  Curran took a breath, closed his eyes and switched it on.

  Harsh light made the black of his eyelids go yellow. Curran turned to the wall and blinked a few times.

  He grinned.

  He could see at last.

  He glanced down and saw the stairs themselves were painted black. The walls were painted black, too. In fact, everything was painted black.

  No wonder his eyes hadn’t been able to make out all that much, even after adjusting to the darkness.

  Curran turned and faced the middle of the room.

  And froze.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kwon hummed another bar of the Phil Collins song and then sighed. Some kind of morning. He wasn’t even trained in surveillance and here he was watching some goon who just might turn out to be a very bad demon dude.

  There’d be a stack of bodies waiting for him when he finally got back to the lab. He smacked his lips and opened the bottle of water he’d bought earlier. It still tasted cool, helped by the fact that the floor of Kwon’s car was cooler than up at chest level. He switched the vents and threw some heat toward his feet.

  Curran owes me big for this, he decided.

  Crap, Curran already owed him huge.

  Kwon smiled. Truth was, he would have done it for Steve regardless. Strange uptight straight-laced cop, but a good friend anyway. He just hoped his friend knew what he was doing. Kwon knew he was over at Darius’ pad right now, breaking and entering.

  If someone found out, it would spell the end of Curran’s career, that was certain. He didn’t deserve another bad break.

  He deserved some measure of happiness.

  Like Lauren.

  Kwon grinned. The way they looked at each other it was like two scared teenagers at their first dance. Each terrified of asking the other to head out on the floor. But they were both adults. He sighed. Who would have guessed they’d be brought together by the machinations of evil?

  Strange the way the world worked some times.

  God’s plans never were for mortal comprehension, he decided.

  The song switched and he flipped the channel over to the news. For the tenth time since he’d arrived. Nothing had changed. He checked the clock. Almost nine. Sooner or later, he was going to need to take a leak.

  But what about Darius?

  Kwon glanced at the water bottle.

  And frowned.

  Well, he was almost through with it. He looked around. Crowds of people swarmed past his car. Sure, that’d look good. The chief medical examiner for the city of Boston gets a ticket for lewd and lascivious behavior for taking a piss into a water bottle during an unsanctioned stakeout.

  So much for my career, too.

  He popped a breath mint into his mouth. Something about sitting in a car always made him feel like road grunge had settled all over his body. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how long he’d stay in the hot shower later on.

  He snapped his eyes open.

  Whoops. Almost fell asleep.

  He’d have to be careful about that.

  Well, he couldn’t be blamed. He wasn’t cut out for this stuff. Still, this was serious, he reminded himself. Keep it together.

  He leaned back into the seat, pressing his spine outward until he heard the muffled pops that told him he’d cracked it nicely. He sighed and leaned forward, arching it in the other direction the way that hot yoga teacher had instructed him.

  He grinned. They’d certainly created some new and exciting postures after that class.

  He took another gulp of water and felt his bladder size increase.

  Ugh.

  Soon was coming sooner than later he thought.

  ***

  Curran wasn’t quite sure what to make of the scene before him.

  A huge red pentagram had been painted on the floor. He stooped and examined the red. Was it paint? It looked too red to be blood. If it had been, the dried blood would have been darker – probably almost brown.

  He stood, almost refusing to enter the pentagram itself.

  And standing in the center of it was the most unusual sight of all.

  Some kind of huge vat.

  Another sense of déjà vu rolled over him. Somehow this all seemed vaguely familiar. From the dream the other night? Had he seen it beforehand?

  The weird markings covering it suggested a jar of great age. Curran chewed his lower lip. So much for Darius not being involved in Satanism. He sighed. Still, whether any of this had any real effect still had yet to be seen.

  Not that Curran really wanted to see if it was effective.

  I wonder what’s inside that vat, he thought. He looked down at the pentagram a
gain and tried to remember anything he’d ever read about real magic.

  There hadn’t been much.

  Hell with it, he decided. I’ve come this far. Can’t turn back now because of what’s drawn on the floor of some guy’s cellar.

  He stepped into the pentagram.

  ***

  If Kwon had been trying his damnedest to keep control over his bladder, he just about lost it entirely when the door to Darius’ shop opened and the man himself came out and locked the front door.

  Kwon sat up.

  “Oh crap.”

  He watched Darius walk around the store, down the small alleyway that ran adjacent to it. Kwon cracked the window. Over the din of street noise, he heard the engine turn over.

  “Crap.”

  He picked up the cell phone and punched in Curran’s number.

  Darius’ silver Saab appeared at the top of the alleyway. He looked down both sides of the street, the pulled out into the street. A second later, he gunned the engine and shot down the street.

  In Kwon’s ear, a female operator informed him that the cellular customer he was trying to reach was unavailable or out of range.

  Kwon slammed the phone down, cranked his engine and shot out into the traffic behind Darius.

  ***

  Nothing happened.

  Curran breathed out, suddenly aware that he’d been holding his breath.

  He almost grinned. What did you expect? A bolt of lightning?

  The vat was close. Inviting, almost. Curran bent down and ran his hands over the outside of it. It felt warm to the touch and the texture seemed like some of the old earthenware pots he’d once examined at a museum. Raised writing covered the outside of the vat. Flecks of black and red paint came away on his hand.

  I wonder what language that is, he thought. Certainly it was none he recognized.

  He turned his attention to the top of the vat.

  And frowned.

  A very modern-looking lid seemed to seal the vat off like a vacuum seal used to keep food or other perishable products from spoiling when exposed to the air.

  Curran chewed his lip again. This time he found a small flap of skin and bit down, tasting a sudden draw of blood.

  What was the lid keeping from spoiling?

  ***

  Kwon pounded his hands on the steering wheel. Traffic was insane. Cars and trucks jostled each other in the bumper-to-bumper traffic jams.

  But ahead of him, Darius’ Saab seemed to have no trouble negotiating the slipstream.

  That’s not fair, thought Kwon. After all, the guy’s a demon.

  He watched in horror as Darius pulled ahead and made a yellow light a second before it changed to red and trapped Kwon behind a minivan.

  Kwon grabbed the cell phone and hit redial.

  “Come on!”

  ***

  Curran unclasped one side of the lid.

  It came off with a sharp hissing sound.

  Escaping air?

  He frowned.

  Sniffed.

  Wha - ?

  He unclasped the other side.

  A softer hiss of escaping air.

  And then, Curran took the lid in both hands, surprised at how heavy it actually felt.

  He lifted the lid off the vat.

  ***

  Kwon could see him up ahead. He’d just made the entrance to route 9 down by Brookline Village. At this point, he’d reach Chestnut Hill in maybe ten minutes.

  Not a lot of time.

  I’ve got to do something, he thought.

  Images of him slamming into Darius’ car filled his head. But what good would that do? Slow him down?

  Maybe.

  But if he recognized Kwon.

  If he suspected anything.

  He might kill me.

  In his ear, the same female operator came on again.

  Where the hell was Curran?

  ***

  The smell slammed into him like a tidal wave.

  Curran stumbled back.

  He clamped down on his jaw reflexively to keep from puking his guts out.

  Oh my God, he thought. What in heaven’s name is that?

  He fell back against the wall.

  It stunk like nothing he’d ever had the misfortune of smelling before. As if all the vomit and crap and piss and rotting corpses in the world had commingled together inside this earthen jar, aging and fermenting into one horrid putrid mass of the most foul-smelling goop on the planet.

  Curran felt his gorge rising in the back of his throat.

  I’ve got to get out of here, he thought.

  ***

  Past the reservoir on their left-hand side, Darius and Kwon streaked down route 9. At this part of the road, it was almost flat out. Darius’ Saab drew out the distance between them even further.

  Kwon jumped lanes, narrowly missing a Toyota with a very pissed off looking driver. Kwon shoved the gas pedal to the floor and felt the engine complain.

  “Come on bitch!”

  The car eased forward, slowly gnawing down the distance.

  If he could just reach Darius’ car.

  He had to try!

  ***

  It was harder getting the lid back into place.

  Curran had to take tiny breaths and each time he did, he felt like gagging, puking, and passing out.

  He got the lid on.

  Clasped one side of it.

  Then the other.

  He took another breath.

  Gagged.

  Fought back the rising tide of vomit.

  Turned toward the cellar stairs and headed back up, careful to switch off the light first as he did so.

  At the top of the stairs, he left the kitchen and headed back toward the door he’d come in through.

  He stepped outside and into the cooler air.

  He stumbled across the street, finally puking once into the gutter by his car, leaning there for a second, gulping air as sweat poured down his face.

  He looked back at the house.

  What had he just seen?

  Lauren – she must be right, he thought finally.

  Everything was true.

  It had to be!

  Numbly, he reached for his car door, slid inside and started the engine.

  ***

  Kwon peeled off route 9.

  He was just three cars away from Darius.

  He tried the cell phone again.

  ***

  Curran grabbed the phone. His head swam in disgust.

  “Yeah?”

  “Jesus Christ, where the hell are you?”

  Kwon. He sounded terrified. “What’s the matter?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In my car. Outside Darius’ house.”

  “Well shrink down because he just turned onto the street!”

  Curran dove for the floor of his car. A second later he heard the Saab roll past, its engine still revving at high speed.

  “What the hell happened?” Curran noticed he’d actually whispered.

  “He came out and closed up the store. I tried to call you for the past twenty minutes. I kept getting that damned ‘out of range’ message. Where the hell were you?”

  Curran sighed. “In his basement.”

  “Figures. Signal must not have been able to penetrate.”

  “Guess I got out of there just in time, huh?”

  Kwon’s voice sounded strained. “Steve?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t think I like this aspect of police work very much.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “But what was it?”

  Curran frowned, the memory of heaving his guts out still tasted fresh. “I don’t know. All I do know is that it smelled like all the sewers of earth had run together and sat in that jar for years. I mean, it stunk like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.”

  Lauren folded her hands. “We know that the Soul Eater�
��s purpose is to resurrect Satan. And he’s apparently been killing evil people for the last five years. Each of his victims has had no obvious sign of death. No physical things have been taken from them.”

  “Nothing physical aside from green brains,” said Curran. “But what about something else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Suppose Darius is living up to his namesake. Suppose he really is eating the souls of his victims.”

  “And then doing what with them?”

  Curran shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe…he’s crapping them out?”

  “God,” said Lauren. “Do you really think so?”

  “All I can tell you is what I smelled. I wanted to puke my guts out as soon as the first whiff hit me.”

  “Maybe that’s what it is, then,” said Lauren. “Or maybe he vomits the souls into the vat.”

  “Is that possible?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Is any of this possible, Steve? I don’t know. All I do know is that it seems to be happening regardless of whether we think it ought to be or not. Darius is working hard to complete his objective.”

  “He can’t be finished yet, though,” said Curran.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “If he was finished, Satan would already be back. Wouldn’t he?”

  “Good point.” Lauren steepled her fingers. “That means he’s got another victim on the back burner.”

  “Maybe more than one,” said Curran. “We don’t know what the formula is, remember?”

  “Right,” said Lauren. “I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Do you think Darius knows you were at his house?”

  Curran took a swig of water. “I tried to leave it exactly as I found it. But I can’t be sure I did given how I was feeling when I left. He’s lucky I didn’t lose my lunch all over some of his precious antiques.” Curran frowned, remembering. “Crap.”

  “What?”

  “The door. The damned door.” Curran shook his head. “I left it unlocked.”

  “Why’d you do that?”