I’ll never make it to that pistol in the lockbox.
One. Twenty-nine. Seventy-four.
If only.
I glance back at her when I sense movement, the lessening of a struggle with my legs. She smiles maliciously. She’s toying with me. Instead of pulling me to her, she uses my leg like a rope and pulls up along my body, hand over hand, progressing a few inches at a time.
“No. No. No,” I snarl through gritted teeth. “Get off me.”
I get brave for about half a second and hold still, you know, like that scene in Braveheart where Mel Gibson is shouting, “Hold!” while his ragtag army hides their spears. I wait, shaking with fear, until she gets just close enough to put her hand on my thigh.
Then I bring my free knee up and slam it into her temple as hard as I can, using all the leverage I can muster. It’s one final attempt, one last-ditch effort, and I’m just as surprised as the advancing English army that Gibson’s plan worked.
She tumbles over, temporarily dazed, letting go as she flops to the side, groaning up at the ceiling.
I thrash away from her, rolling to my right, pushing up on my knees, then spring to my feet. I’m perched to bolt for the front door when I hear, “Ford Atticus Ford,” in a voice that is nothing like Lauren’s.
It’s a voice like black tar covering a bed of nails, thick and sharp at the same time. A devilish hound growling at me with broken glass lodged in its throat.
I should run. Goddamn it, I should take a stuntman dive through the large-paned picture window instead of fooling with the door.
But I can’t.
The sound of that thing’s voice freezes me in place, petrified.
I’m like a USPS mailbox, one of those squat blue ones on a street corner, with my feet bolted to the concrete. I’m not going anywhere. A small rodent, frozen in fear, at the sound of a superior predator lurking near me.
“What do you want?” I croak.
“We were sent for. We are messengers.”
“For who?” I can’t not look in Lauren’s direction. My need to know is like a ringing phone. I have to answer its call.
She’s on all fours now, sneering, slowly swaying side to side to a rhythm I can’t hear. She puts one hand in front of the other and crawls six inches closer to me.
I smell fire, smoke, and sulfur.
“I’m not letting you in,” I say. “I’m never letting you in. You’ll have to take me.”
“There are no doors between us now. You are free. Open to me.”
“No.”
“Mine if I want you.”
“You can’t. I’ll—”
“Silence, child!” she shouts, getting to her feet. “Master has a message.”
“Wh—who—who’s your master?” I retreat, inching away from her.
“You already know.” She steps closer, arms at her sides, breathing heavily. I look at her feet as she takes another step—instinctual reaction—and I see that her perfectly manicured, pristine nails, the flawlessly polished red ones that I remember from this morning, have grown into gnarled claws. The tips click on the hardwood floor.
“Chelsea’s demon?”
She says, “Him, yes,” then lowers her voice to a whispering hiss. “Master.”
I’m nothing if I’m not trying to catch some supernatural entity off guard, to get them to reveal themselves, to give me workable information—it’s what I’m good at. It’s in my nature, so on pure impulse, I ask, “What’s his name?”
It’s a foolish hope that Lauren’s possessor will accidentally reveal some information, because there’s power in a name.
The Tier One right-hander that we were calling Azeraul, that son of a motherless goat has a name—everything has a name, and it’s a damn disgrace that I won’t live long enough to use it, in it’s presence, accompanied by the words, “What a humongous goddamn asshole you are, blank.”
She doesn’t take the bait.
Instead, she tilts her head back and erupts in charred, smoldering laughter. “You will never know his name.”
So it’s definitely a he. That’s one step in the right direction. If only I had more time.
Time.
Time!
In my panic, I completely forgot that I asked Mel to call 9-1-1. How long has it been? How long have I been struggling to get away from Lauren? What feels like hours has most likely been a couple of minutes. On a great day, in fantastic weather, I’m guessing the police would be here in another minute or two. Then again, I suspect that Newport’s abilities aren’t perfection personified—not that I doubt the ability of their emergency response teams—it’s just that it seems like a slightly underprivileged town, like many along the coast of Oregon, with little access to big budgets and…
For the love of God, why is this shit traipsing through my mind when I’m about to die at the hands of Unlovely Lady Death right here?
Focus, Ford.
If I can wait her out, if I can stall for just a little while longer, I might be okay.
“What does he want with me?” I ask, my voice cracking, tripping across my tongue. “What did I do?”
“You stole,” she growls.
“Stole what?”
“Her. Master’s plaything. You took her away. And you took him away, you pathetic human slug.”
“You mean Chelsea and Craghorn?”
“Yes,” she says, the long s slithering out of her mouth. If she shook her ass, would it sound like a rattlesnake? “The girl, so young and delectable. Fresh meat. Delicious. She would have been perfect for him. A suitable host. So blood red on the inside. Her skin, the purest white of innocence. He was preparing her, and you took her from him. You stole what wasn’t yours. And that man, the little worm. He begged for a new life. He got down on his knees and he renounced your Creator. He wasn’t pristine like your darling little friend, but he was willing. His soul was searching for salvation like an infant begging for a teat.”
“That’s not true,” I say, stalling. “He just missed his wife. He was trying to call her back to him.”
“You mortals, such imbeciles. Believing the written word of a desperate man. He was a liar. You all are. You don’t deserve your Creator’s generosity. You ate the apple, every single one of you, and then you expect your pitiful Maker to give you more. More. Always more. Gluttonous heathens. All of you belong at the feet of my master, and his master, while your skin fries and your fat boils in the fires below.”
“Like I didn’t already know we’re doomed? And why Lauren? Why use her? Why didn’t that piece of shit tell me face to face? You’re killing her to tell me something I already know? What a waste. And you wanna accuse us of gluttony?”
“Why use her? Master knows all. Master is everywhere. Of the seven deadly sins, lust has the shortest path to travel. And for you, Ford Atticus Ford, lust is in your heart. She could get close, quickly.”
“Lust? For her? Then Master doesn’t know everything.”
Maybe I can get away with that fib.
Laughter explodes from her chest. “See? Liars, all of you.”
Maybe not.
“If you’re going to kill me,” I say, “do it now. Let’s finish this. Send me down there so I can talk to him in person and tell him where to shove it. Maybe I’ll set up shop, take over, then I can be the one calling the shots, huh?”
Does reverse psychology work on a demonic entity?
Nope.
The coffee table is made of heavy oak, with a thick plate of glass sitting on top of it. The Lauren Thing picks it up with one hand by the support bar underneath the glass. She holds it high over her head, glaring at me, and I’m certain that this is it.
Me and my big mouth.
How many times have I said that in my life?
Seems fitting that’s what will send me out of this world, too.
She winks—the fucking thing actually winks at me—then flicks the coffee table through the picture window as easily as tossing a magazine on a kitchen counter.
/> Shattered glass peppers the porch outside as wind whips through the gaping maw left behind, bringing with it sheets of rain and the salty smell of the ocean beyond.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she says. “He just wants you to know that he’s going to take her back. She will be his again. No matter what you do. No matter where you go or where you take her, he will find her and reclaim what he rightfully owns. He knows of this woman Carla and her plans for his youngling. Master will wait, if he must.”
I shout, “Why wait? Why not take her now? Why not take her before? If he’s so goddamn sure of himself, why hasn’t he gotten to her already?”
“Does a cat eat the mouse right away? No. It toys with it. Prepares it for a meal.”
“So? If he can take her any time he wants, if he’s just playing with her, why tell me? The fuck do I care?”
I really gotta stop this reverse psychology thing. It’s not working.
“Because,” she says, lengthening the pause, teasing me with her secret, “you’ve been a burden for far too long. You will be the end of Chelsea.”
“Yeah, right. The girl I’ve been trying to save?”
The wailing sound of sirens drifts through the shattered window.
Thank God.
“You will damage Chelsea. You will prepare her for his return, and you, repulsive maggot, will finally burn for your meddling intrusions. You’ll be ripped from limb to limb in the eyes of humanity and thrown to the snarling wolves, bloody and crying.”
The sirens howl, less than a mile away now. In the corner of my eye, I spot a fireplace poker leaning up against the stone. I inch closer to it.
“Whatever,” I say, sneering, “you and what army?”
“I don’t need an army,” she replies, stepping forward. “I only need to get inside you. Master will do the rest.”
The woman I previously knew as Lauren Coeburn plunges at me in brutal rage, a blood-curdling scream screeching out of her throat, teeth bared, fingernails like talons reaching for my throat.
I reach for the poker, leaning over, moving as if I’m swimming in cold molasses, drifting, flowing to the side. I wrap my fingers around the cool metal handle and spin, bringing it up, holding the base of it against my shoulder for support, the other hand high on its neck, aiming it at the base of her throat.
The black-eyed Lauren Thing understands too late. She tries in vain to halt her momentum, yowling in fear a split-second before I feel the sharp tip puncturing soft skin. Her wail becomes a choking gurgle as the poker slides easily through the tissue, glances off her spine, and protrudes out the back of her neck.
It sounds like stabbing Eve’s proverbial apple with a knife. What a nauseating noise. I tumble backwards, onto my rear, as she continues to slide down toward me. I squirm to the side, pushing the twitching body away.
I hear a wet, final cough coming from the Lauren Thing, which is then followed by hurried steps coming up the front porch.
The undulating red and blue lights on the ceiling fill my chest with relief.
Help. Thirty seconds too late.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Mike Long
If a lot of this seems vaguely familiar, it’s because it is.
Black swirling masses, demonic entities, Ouija boards and séances.
It happens more often than you would think.
Ghosts, demons, paranormal thingies that go bump in the night, they all have a myriad of ways to manifest once they’ve managed to cobble together enough energy. That said, they’ll often choose the path of least resistance if they’re an intelligent haunt—rather than a residual one—because why not? If the easiest method gets the point across, then so be it. If they don’t choose to take a physical form, or if there isn’t enough energy available, they’ll communicate via EVPs or by knocking a book off a shelf to either make a point or let you know they’re present, and that they do, in fact, exist.
Back in Dakota’s home earlier, when I felt like the entity was junior class, no big deal, I totally screwed the pooch on that one. I should’ve known better.
Ford would have noticed something was off, damn it.
Ford would’ve taken one long look at that thing and said, “Yep, get out the holy water, it’s gonna be a long night.”
I fell for the oldest trick in the book: I allowed that dickwad to convince me that it was relatively harmless before I had done my homework. I consider myself lucky that it didn’t pick up my soul by its scraggly, bony fingers and swallow it whole like an unlucky goldfish at a frat party.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I was so caught up in All That is Dakota earlier that it could have done some major league damage. That’s the last time I’ll go into a potentially dangerous investigation with my shorts down around my ankles and a bullseye painted on my butt.
Then there’s the matter of Toni and—well, I’m guessing it’s the contractor, Armando, from Dakota’s description—which will have to be shelved until later. I had expected it, honestly, and I feel like I should be more outraged, but I’m not.
It’s like you’re playing shortstop in a baseball game, right? The Paul Bunyan-sized first baseman from the other team steps up to the plate using a sequoia tree for a bat, and he wallops a ninety-mile-per-hour fastball into a line drive, straight at your face. You stand there and watch the ball spinning, hurtling at you in super slow-mo, and you let it wallop you right in the honker.
I’m upset that it hurts, yet I can’t necessarily be pissed at the baseball for hitting me when I stood there and didn’t take action to protect myself.
Anyway. Lots of shit on my mind that I need to push out of the way so I can be properly focused on this demonic asshole squatting in Dakota’s beachfront mansion.
Speaking of Dakota, she’s still sitting over there in the passenger seat, trying to tell me that she is most certainly helping me tonight, that I shouldn’t be doing this alone, especially not without Ford around.
I hadn’t been entirely listening until that part.
“What?” I snap. We’re sitting at the last stoplight before our coastal street that will take us past homes that cost way too much for what they offer. I flash an annoyed look at her. “You think I can’t handle this on my own? Let me tell you something: I do not need the almighty Ford Atticus Ford to hold my hand, okay?”
Dakota, bless her, understands that I’m operating on an accelerated level of stress, and the snarky, pissy version of me that she’s seeing right now isn’t the standard Mike Long. My hand is on the shifter. She covers it with hers, soft skin soothing me.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says. “Put the guns away, Tex. I know you’re on edge, but you of all people know that you can’t go into an investigation with so much negative energy fogging up your windows. Season five, episode nine, remember? ‘Rule number one, folks, surround yourself with positive, white light.’”
“You saw that one, huh?” She’s got me there. We were on that decommissioned navy ship in North Carolina, and Ford was pissed about something—I can’t recall what—and a particularly angry spirit, a former sailor, feasted on his negativity. It soaked up all of that damaging energy and scratched the absolute shit out of the docent during our initial tour. Last I heard, the guy quit the next day and never set foot back on deck.
“Top of my list,” Dakota says. “One of the few times where you took charge. You looked good in the captain’s seat.”
The light turns green. I have a little extra lead in my foot. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Miss Bailey.”
***
“You’ve probably seen enough episodes to know how this works, yeah? That stuff earlier was just preliminary. This is the real deal, now that we know what’s in there.”
“I got this,” she says. “I think.”
We’re standing outside of Dakota’s front doors, the tall glass ones facing east out over the Atlantic, suited up and armed like a couple of badass SEALs getting prepped to storm a terrorist stronghold.
<
br /> Not really. I’m carrying a few pieces of ghost hunting equipment with me—I left the paranormal flatulence detector behind—along with a Batman-style utility belt. Okay, really, it’s one of Toni’s running belts that carries four eight-ounce bottles of water for drinking on long distance runs.
Only this water is blessed. Holy-fied, if you will.
After our big scare back at Craghorn’s place a couple of weeks ago, where Ford and I went into that investigation with some decade-old holy water I had lying around, I decided it might be a good idea to stock up again. I visited a Catholic priest I know in Kitty Hawk proper, a fellow by the name of Father Duke, and had him bless a gallon of tap water I brought along. I’m not sure if the Pope and his many minions would necessarily approve of that process, or if, like, that’s Catholically legal, but Father Duke has been a fan of Graveyard from day one.
Just don’t tell his congregation.
So, I have two digital voice recorders on me, a full spectrum camera, and digital video cam, one of the sophisticated bastards we used to call spotcams, which led to Ford’s infinitesimal supply of spank bank material when thousands of spotcamgirls took it upon themselves to flood his inbox with pictures of ladies in various stages of undress.
That’s four pieces of equipment for me, and not nearly as many photos of naked fans.
Dakota carries an EMF detector, the thermal imaging camera, and a digital camera.
Seven pieces total, which is really about half of what I’d like to go into this place with, but here’s my thinking: less equipment means less batteries, which leads to less available energy for the demon to access. There’s no doubt that he’ll try to chomp on the batteries like a handful of synthetic energy pills, along with the spares I brought with me.
However, we should be able to get a few hours of investigation time in, or it’ll be just enough to provide him with energy to manifest, albeit weakly, on top of whatever else he’s drawn from.
The less time we have to spend in this house, the better.
The White Night Page 18
