by Rob Cornell
He acted like he didn’t hear her, still staring up. “Mom? Are you okay?”
Jessie took Ryan’s face between her hands and forced his gaze to her. “We can’t help her. We have to hide or we are going to die.”
“What are you talking about?”
She was struck with the magnitude of what she now knew and couldn’t explain fast enough to save them. “If you love me,” she said, “you have to trust me.”
His eyes cleared and regained focus. He nodded. “Follow me.” He took her hand and led her toward the back of the basement.
Chapter Eighteen
Lockman, out of habit, parked one street over from the address Kate gave him. He glanced around the inside of the rental for some kind of weapon. The rental company provided a plastic ice scraper that sat on the floor in the back. Unfortunately, holy water and guns with silver bullets weren’t optional amenities offered with the vehicle.
He got out of the car and thought about checking the trunk for a tire iron. Even if he were put in a position where he needed a weapon, the kinds of things Dolan would throw his way wouldn’t have much to fear from the swing of a metal bar. And who knew? He could get lucky and find Jessie doing whatever normal girls her age did with their boyfriends.
Wait a sec...
He popped the truck, found the tire iron, and took it with him.
He cut through a neighbor’s yard and into Ryan’s back yard. He didn’t worry much about being seen. The moonless night provided plenty of cover as long as he stuck to the shadows.
The yard didn’t amount to much, though it did make the patch of weeds at Lockman’s house in LA look all the more pathetic. A rusted metal swing set stood in the center of the lawn. The swings themselves were missing the seats, which left the chains dangling from the cross bar like broken shackles.
He skirted around the swing set and approached the back door. Crickets called back and forth with their chirps from the cracks in the cement patio. The blinds were all drawn. The faintest hint of light showed around the edges of the blinds to a back bedroom. Lockman cocked his head, listened. Through the cricket chirps he could hear a television.
Lockman tested the heft of the tire iron while he thought about what to do next. A buzz ran through his body like an electrical current riding his nervous system. The quality of silence bothered him. But after the day he’d had, he wasn’t sure he could trust instincts alone. He’d become conditioned to expect danger.
With the head of the tire iron he rapped on the back door.
The crickets fell quiet at the sound. The television emitted what sounded like a laugh track. No movement, though.
He rapped again, louder. The sound echoed off the face of the house, amplifying the effect.
Still no answer.
It didn’t mean anything. Jessie might not have come here in the first place. Ryan and his family could have been out. Maybe they were deep sleepers.
Plenty of possibilities. None of them good enough to bet on.
He turned the knob, but when he pushed on the door a deadbolt kept it in place. Committed now, he tapped the glass pane closest to the doorknob. The glass broke easily. He rattled the tire iron in the hole he’d made to break away enough glass to fit a hand through, then reached in and undid the deadbolt.
The backdoor landing had two possible exits besides the one leading outside. One led to a staircase down to the basement, the other opened to a kitchen. The layout was strikingly similar to Kate’s house. Apparently when the houses were built in these suburbs there was a shortage of original blueprints.
He readied the tire iron and crept into the kitchen.
The woman lay on the tile floor, limbs akimbo, hair splayed in the pool of blood seeping out from under her head. Her eyes stared at the ceiling, one lazily, the other wide and terrified.
Lockman scanned the rest of the kitchen and what he could see of the adjoining family room. No sign of anyone else. He crouched by the body and checked for bite marks, though vamps usually went for the throat, and it wasn’t like in the movies with two tiny pin marks. If a vamp had killed this woman her neck would be half gone.
The bulk of the damage seemed to come from the back of her head, smashed against the tiles so that it looked like her head had sunk into the floor when in fact her skull had collapsed.
A simple fall wouldn’t cause that kind of damage. Someone—or something—slammed her head against the floor. An odd way to kill. Time to analyze the what and how could come later, though. If Jessie was in the house, he had to find her.
He kept the tire iron ready and slunk from the kitchen and down the hall to the back bedroom he’d seen the light coming from. As he approached the room the sound of the television grew louder. A cheesy jingle about toilet cleaner piped out from the open door.
When he entered he found the covers on the bed rumpled as if someone had been sleeping there. The TV stood on the dresser, canted at an angle to face the bed squarely. But the TV played to an empty room.
Lockman checked the other two rooms. One looked like a pretty typical teen boy’s room, with posters on the walls and a smell that hinted at the overactive glands of puberty. The other room had a desk with a computer and a set of file cabinets. Both rooms were empty. He peered into the bathroom. No one.
Upstairs covered, that left only the basement. He crossed back through the kitchen. When he reached the staircase, he looked down and saw a section of carpeting and a portion of paneled wall. A swatch of light cut across the floor at the bottom of the stairs, the source from around the corner.
He felt certain Jessie was down there, or had been. He tightened his grip on his makeshift weapon and started down the stairs.
* * *
“I know you’re down here.” His voice sounded like a gust of wind through tall grass. Just hearing it made Jessie shiver.
Ryan had led her to a small room built to house the furnace and water heater. Not much larger than a closet, the space barely afforded them room to squeeze by the two machines and crouch into a dark corner.
Ryan had his arms around her and hugged her close. Nothing could rid her of the chill flowing through her blood, though.
“I heard you cry for your mommy.”
Jessie squeezed her eyes shut and couldn’t tell the difference from having them open in the pitch blankness. Whoever was out there, he might have a strange voice, but it didn’t sound like the vampires had in LA. Still, she would place a bet the dude was not really a dude at all. Swamp monster? Space alien? Sasquatch? Who freaking knew?
Ryan stroked her hair. She could feel the tremor in his hand. Nothing compared to how she shook. Of course, Ryan didn’t know how scared he should really be.
“I’m going to find you.”
Jessie grabbed Ryan’s hand and squeezed so tightly she thought she could break his fingers. He squeezed back and pulled her more tightly against him.
We’re going to die.
Knowing that, accepting that, thawed the paralyzing cold inside of her. She moved her lips against Ryan’s ear and whispered, “I love you, too.”
“How sweet,” the voice said, impossibly close.
Then she saw the phosphorescent glow of the face poking through the wall as if the wall were no more substantial than air.
Jessie screamed, and Ryan screamed with her.
* * *
Lockman heard the voice when he reached the bottom of the stairs.
“I’m going to find you.”
His gut tensed. He peered around the corner. A section of the basement looked like a make-shift living room, with a TV and couch. Beyond that, a larger portion of the space held metal storage shelves carrying neatly labeled boxes. Two walls in the back corner jutted out, forming a small room with a closed door. Probably a utility room for the furnace and water heater. By the door to this room stood what looked like a distorted hologram of a person with a phosphorescent greenish tint. The thing was hard to make out in the light. A quick glance might have left Lockman thinki
ng his eyes had tricked him, conjuring an image in the corner of his vision. But even when he blinked, the translucent figure remained in sight.
Lockman had seen many strange things during his work with the Agency. This one was new.
The figure bent at the waist and poked its head through the wall of the utility room.
The screams came next.
Lockman raised the tire iron and strode forward. But the thing stepped completely through the wall before he could close the distance.
One of the screamers stopped. A boy’s voice. The scream did not stop abruptly, but trailed off as if strangled.
Lockman dashed to the door and flung it open. The light from behind him flooded into the room, chasing off the shadows. In the back of the room, Jessie crouched next to a boy around her age, long hair hanging close to his eyes, styled to look messy.
No sign of the transparent man.
“Where did it go?”
Jessie shook her head, her voice still pitched at a near scream. “I don’t know. It disappeared.”
The boy looked ready to puke.
“Is this Ryan?”
Jessie nodded.
“Is he okay?”
“What do you think?” she yelled, voice quivering. “What was that thing?”
“Never seen anything like it.” He held out a hand. “We have to get out of here.”
Jessie’s nostrils flared as she took a few sharp breaths. Then she got to her feet. “Come on, Ry. This is my dad. He can help us.”
Ryan looked up at Jessie as if he didn’t recognize her. Then he turned his head and stared at Lockman.
Just what he needed. Another kid in shock after his first brush with the supernatural. This routine was getting old.
“Get him on his feet or we’re leaving him.”
“No.” She crouched back by the kid’s side and took his hand. “Can’t you see he’s scared out of his mind?” She hesitated, something occurring to her. “Did you see his mom?”
Lockman closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“Oh. Oh, no.”
He opened his eyes. Jessie had Ryan on his feet, and while it was clear she understood what had happened to his mother, Ryan didn’t look like he could grasp any concept more complex than breathing.
“Look, kid, I’m sorry. But—”
“Mommy’s dead.” The boy smiled. “I know. I killed her.”
The hairs on the back of Lockman’s neck stood on end.
Jessie tried to pull away from her boyfriend, but the kid held onto her hand and wouldn’t let go.
“Ryan, what are you talking about? Let me go.”
Ryan yanked her toward him and wrapped his other arm around her neck, her throat in the crook of his elbow, her body in front of him like a shield.
“If you want your daughter alive, you’ll come with me.”
“What are you doing?” Jessie shouted.
Lockman’s shoulders sagged. “That’s not Ryan anymore.”
The boy nodded at the tire iron in Lockman’s hand. “Put that down and come peacefully, all right? Otherwise, I’ll be tempted to switch bodies. You know, when I leave them, they’re never quite the same. Poor mortal souls can’t handle the occasional passenger. It’s really sad.”
Jessie gave Lockman a wet and desperate look. In that moment she resembled her mother, that same expression of pain he saw when he’d told Kate Jessie was in danger.
Lockman felt something tear inside of him. He tamped down the feeling, set his jaw. “What are you?”
“An ex-mortal.”
“Ghost? Dolan must have some serious hold on a thing like you to be brave enough to let cross to our side.”
“I’m no slave.”
“Every damn one of you that comes here is a slave. You don’t belong. You’re here because someone else willed it.”
“A convenient accident that allows us to feed on the weak of your world.”
“The party won’t last.”
The boy cackled. “Mortal hubris. Always good for a laugh.” His face went from mirthful to menacing in a fraction of a second. “Drop the bar and let’s head upstairs.”
“Ryan, stop it,” Jessie pleaded. “Whatever’s happened to you, you have to fight it.”
The boy put his mouth an inch from Jessie’s cheek. “He can hear you. And he’s trying to fight. He’s very brave.”
“Keep fighting.”
“Don’t worry, he will. He’ll fight until he tears his very soul in half. It’s what they all do. But don’t worry, sweetheart. If Dad does as told, I promise not to make your boyfriend smash his skull in like I did his mother.”
Jessie went visibly tense in the boy’s hold.
“Of course, maybe you’d prefer I put him out of his misery rather than leave him a drooling catatonic?”
“You son of a bitch.”
Ryan laughed. “While I would love to talk about family trees, it’s time to go. Like I said, I would love to slip inside of your daughter. Possessing a young lady like this could make for some pleasurable days ahead.”
“Fine.” Lockman’s skin felt ready to peel away from the heat burning through him. “But when I see Dolan, I’ll make sure I find what he’s got that binds you. And when I do, you’ll be my bitch.”
“Something tells me Mr. Dolan won’t give you the chance. He’s quite hot to have you visit.” He gave Jessie a shake. “Now drop it.”
Lockman dropped the tire iron to the floor.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate opened the bottom drawer of her dresser. The drawer held mostly shirts and blouses she had grown tired of or grown out of. There was a time she could eat anything without a thought to her waistline. Age did cruel things to a metabolism. Even with her running, she could never get back to her old weight.
But Craig? If anything, age had improved him. Taken off the too-slick coating of youth and left lines of character in his face. His body had somehow remained pretty close to what she remembered.
Bastard.
She reached into the drawer, rooting past the clothes to the small wood jewelry box she kept back there. The box held only one piece of jewelry. For some reason she thought it might be missing when she opened the box, but it lay waiting for her untouched. A simple silver chain with a silver pendant. The pendent itself looked like an ancient coin. One side of the quarter-sized disc was perfectly smooth. The opposite side had a collection of religious symbols engraved on it. A cross. The Star of David. A pentagram. And others she didn’t recognize.
When he had given it to her, she thought it the strangest gift. She would never forget what he said when he placed the chain around her neck.
This will protect you.
Protect me from what? She’d asked.
From the darker things.
At the time she thought he meant it as a metaphor or something. Though he said it with the authority of someone who had seen darker things.
Was that what this was all about now?
She lifted the pendant from the box and clipped it around her neck. If there was ever a time to get superstitious, now seemed good. She tucked the pendant into her blouse, put the box back into the drawer. She closed the drawer then stood and looked at herself in the mirror. Somewhere inside the woman staring back at her was the woman she used to be. The woman Craig would recognize. The woman Kate had to leave behind because she had a responsibility to her daughter. And in the years since she had convinced herself that who she was now was superior to that younger self. Then Craig shows up out of the blue, and he had her wondering if she missed the old Kate.
What difference did it make if she did? There was no going back.
“Honey,” Alec called. “Can you come out here?”
She curled her lip at her reflection. Why can’t you come in here? She rolled her eyes. Pettiness did not make for a good marriage. She would be the bigger person.
“Coming.”
She touched the pendant through her blouse. What am I doing?
Tempti
ng fate was what.
She found Alec in the family room. A masked man stood behind him with a gun to the back of Alec’s head.
She started to scream, but a gloved hand covered her mouth before the sound could escape. Something hard and narrow pressed against her skull. “Just relax.” A woman’s voice, muffled as if she wore a mask, too.
Kate stared at Alec with wide eyes. He stared back. “Just do as they say.”
She wanted to ask what they wanted, but the hand over her mouth kept her from voicing any questions.
Darker things.
The thought crossed her mind right before the hood whipped down over her head and trapped her in darkness.
* * *
“Okay,” said the specter—as Lockman came to think of the thing that wore Ryan’s body. “Now turn around and walk.”
“Let go of my daughter.”
“Come on. I’m ready to take her. I don’t care what happens to her. If I thought I could otherwise motivate you to come along, I would have taken her already.”
“Why not take me? Then you can march me right into Dolan’s place.”
“I told you. A mortal mind can’t handle sharing a soul. It drives you mad.”
Lockman shrugged. “So? You delivered me alive. That’s not good enough?”
“Mr. Dolan was quite clear that no harm come to you.”
“That’s good to know.” He looked Jessie in the eyes. “I’m sorry. I tried to keep you safe, but I have to think of the greater good.”
The boy’s brow creased under his shaggy bangs.
Jessie went still. Her lips parted slightly. “What?”
Lockman returned his attention to the specter. “Go ahead. Take her if you want. I won’t give myself over to Dolan.”
Not-Ryan smirked. “Nice bluff.”
Lockman bent over and picked up the tire iron. “This look like a bluff?”
“Don’t waste any more of my time.”
“Take her.”
“I will.”
“Show me. I want to see what it looks like.”
