Magic. It always came down to sorcery in the long run. He could have destroyed the thing and called it done, but as he’d already accused himself of several times, he was getting soft. He tightened the wards around the spirit and severed its ties to the worlds around it. It took time; the connections it had made to both the living and dead realms were powerful. When he was finished, Crowley waited until he was sure that the spells were working properly.
The rift between the worlds closed itself. The dead that had survived being drawn to the Dead God were pushed away, forced back to where they belonged. There were no people around; Crowley could only hope that none of them were stuck on the wrong side when the dimensional barriers were sealed.
“Okay, ‘Dead God,’ I have a deal for you and it’s a one time offer. You say you’ve barely lived. You say you want to keep on living. I can see that. If I decide to let you live, there will be a few changes. Do you think you can accept that?”
He felt its desperate desire to live. The saddest thing about the situation, as far as Crowley was concerned, was that it really hadn’t understood what it was doing. That didn’t make it innocent, per se, but it was not truly malignant, either.
“I’m going to regret this later, I just know it.” He looked at the thing in his palm and shrugged, not caring that it couldn’t see him. It sensed the intent behind the gesture; that was enough. “Okay. I’ll deal with the details later. Meanwhile, this is going to hurt. Let’s call this payback for all the damage you did.”
One more simple spell: the power taken from the dead and the living alike was released from the hungry ghost sent back to where it came from; very little of the essence stayed around or moved back toward Cherry Hill. Crowley knew it was likely that when he went inside he’d find more corpses than living beings. He had to content himself with the knowledge that it could have been much worse.
What was left of the hungry ghost was weak enough that his hands finally stopped burning from trying to contain the energies: he watched his flesh reform until the itching stopped completely.
“That’s it for now. You stay right here and we’ll work out the rest of the details when I’m done here.” Dead God was weaker indeed. It whimpered its pain and stayed where he had placed it. There was little it could have done in any case.
“Now, let’s go clean up the rest of your mess.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Amelia finally left her shelter shortly after the worst of the emotional barrages came to an abrupt halt. There were still people around her that were alive and feeling pain, but the endless assault she’d felt while the Dead God walked was done with. The difference was so powerful that for a while she almost felt numb.
It was a wonderful change of pace.
Physically she was not at her best. She felt like she’d been sunburned over most of her body and walked carefully to avoid the friction of her clothes rubbing against her skin.
The hallway was empty, so she walked toward the front of the facility. More than ever she wanted to leave Cherry Hill behind. The building was a house of madness and she no longer wished to feel the side effects in her mind or on her flesh.
She didn’t know what Jonathan had done earlier, but she had no doubt that he’d saved her life with his intervention. Another reason for her to be in his debt, to be sure, but she also knew that he’d never make any demands of payment.
One of the front doors to the facility opened and she saw Jonathan as he came in. He moved with a cocky saunter that she was not used to, his head held high as he scanned the main area and started in her direction. His eyes when they met hers were calm, but she could tell it was a mask. He was trying to hide away from the turmoil that still raged inside of him, a tempest of grief and anger that Amelia doubted would ever go away.
“All finished,” he said as he reached her. “The big bad bogeyman isn’t such hot stuff when he gets his butt properly whupped.”
“Are you all right, Jonathan?”
“Couldn’t be better.” His tone dared her to contradict him. She wasn’t feeling all that adventurous at the moment and declined the dare.
“Did you kill it?”
“Not really.” He held out his hand and showed her the pulsing light that was all that remained of the Dead God. As much as she understood about Crowley and his abilities, she couldn’t understand how he simply dismissed the carnage around them. She’d seen him berate her father until he was in tears because of bringing her into the world, and now he held the cause of immense suffering in his hand and showed it to her like it was a prize.
“What will you do with it?”
He stared hard into her eyes, and whatever he was feeling was shut off to her. “I’m not sure yet. Something. It’ll never be a problem again.”
She didn’t say a word, but her expression must have spoken volumes. For the first time that she could remember, he was the one who broke eye contact.
“In any case, let’s take a look around. Maybe there are a few survivors.”
“There are. I can feel them.”
“Yeah? Good. That’ll make this go a lot faster.” He walked past her and headed down the corridor. Much as she wanted to leave the asylum, she followed. She knew it was what he expected of her.
He stopped after half a dozen paces and turned back to face her. He reached out and touched her arm gently and spoke under his breath. A moment later she felt the burns healing on her body. She hadn’t wanted to ask him for anything—he’d already done so much—but she accepted the gift with a sigh of thanks.
From then on, she led and he followed. They moved through the whole of Cherry Hill finding the living in a house of the dead.
***
He couldn’t scream any more. He didn’t have the strength.
Phillip Harrington suffered in silence and wondered how long he would live in his current state. Through eyes that had been twisted into new shapes, he tried to pay attention to everything going on around him. Though he saw blurs of light and darkness and heard the muffled sounds of voices, the sensory input made no sense to him.
Hands touched him, moved his wrecked form around and onto the curved ruin of his back. He found the strength to scream again when it happened and wished desperately for an end to his suffering.
A moment later he got his wish. All that had been done to him was undone. His bones became whole and his body was restored.
Phil let out a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, uncertain if he was dead or alive for a moment. The end of his agonies was a staggering moment in his life.
“How ya feeling, Doc?” Jonathan Crowley’s voice cut through his momentary peace and he felt his blood pressure soar to new heights. All the pleasure he’d just experienced faded away in an instant, replaced by his rage at the cocky tone of his patient’s words.
He opened his eyes and looked at the bastard kneeling over him and the Dunlow woman who may as well have been his mascot.
“How is it that you’re still walking around, John? Shouldn’t somebody have caught you by now?”
Crowley’s expression said he’d just smelled something foul. “Is that your way of saying thanks, Doc? I could have left you the way you were, you know.”
Harrington felt his pulse pounding in his ears. He wanted nothing to do with Crowley. “Am I supposed to thank you for making my life so much better? Is that what you’re expecting from me, John?” He stood up and brushed at his dirty clothing—none of which was sitting exactly in the right place; his pants were twisted at an angle on his hips and his shirt was riding up—then readjusted the way his belt was situated. His anger was so powerful that his eyes were stinging with unwanted tears. “You’re the one that brought this…this curse to Cherry Hill! Everything was fine before you showed up!”
“What did you say to me?” Crowley’s voice had dropped a full octave and that nasty smile of his had vanished. If he didn’t know better, Harrington would have thought the man sounded shocked, as if the truth of Phil’s words could ever
get past the lies that spouted from Crowley’s lips.
“Other people might think you’re some divine miracle worker, Crowley, but I know better! You did this! You and your sick little mind games!” He yelled so loudly, with such fury, that spittle flew from his lips and sprayed across the front of Crowley’s bloodstained guard’s uniform.
Jonathan Crowley trembled with rage, his face reddened and his eyes bulged. Maybe once Phil would have been intimidated, but after everything he’d been through he was beyond being afraid of a mental case.
“You little shit.” Crowley stepped toward him exactly two paces, until they were inches apart. “You sick little bastard. You did this. You cut into the minds of people with your little knives and you tried to stop their violent tendencies. But you weren’t happy with that. You had to go a little deeper, see if you could add just a little more pain to their lives and you set something loose that shouldn’t have ever been set free.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Alexander Granger. His mind wasn’t normal, Doc. I don’t mean he was crazy, I mean his mind was something special. If you’d performed a lobotomy without adding a few extra slices, that thing you let free might have never gotten loose.” Crowley’s eyes blazed with anger. “Don’t you dare lay this at my feet. I had to clean up your mess, Harrington. I had to fix your mistake.”
“Utter nonsense. Delusions from a warped mind.” He smiled as he said it. Knowing it would piss Crowley off even more.
Instead of getting angrier, the comment seemed to calm Crowley down. That little change made Harrington nervous.
“You’re right. I’m the bad guy here. I should have never given you anything. So I’ll take it back.”
Harrington froze: Crowley had healed him. “You can’t possibly be that vicious!”
“Oh, you can keep the flesh, Doc.” John’s eyes narrowed. “I’m taking back the other gift I gave you.”
Crowley turned his back and headed for the door.
“What about everything that happened here?”
“Not my problem.” Crowley crossed his arms. “I don’t even work here. Have a nice life, Doc. For your sake, I hope we don’t meet again.”
As Crowley walked away, Phil noticed the other people in the room for the first time. Detective Branaugh was staring hard at him, his face locked into a stony expression.
“Well don’t just stand there, Detective! Arrest him!”
Branaugh shook his head and moved away. “Arrest him yourself, asshole. He just saved your life.”
***
The car stalled just after Kimberly crossed the fourth covered bridge. She hadn’t bothered to fill the gas tank, even when the warning light showed on the dashboard the night before. Despite her desire to stay where she was, she climbed out of the car and started walking.
Ten minutes later she felt the world change around her. The already darkened sky grew darker, and the air took on a wintry chill.
She should have been afraid, but she was elated. The voice in her head vanished along with the light. Kimberly kept walking, but chose to head for home instead of to the asylum. She was free and walking a dozen miles didn’t seem like that bad a thing if she could stay away from Cherry Hill.
It was only after she crossed over the first covered bridge that she realized she hadn’t seen her car. No matter, she thought. I can always come back for it later.
It was hours later when she was cold, exhausted and nearly delirious that she realized something else had gone wrong. She’d made it most of the way back to her apartment and seen no one. Not even a car in the distance.
The first of the dead people wandered in her direction only three blocks from her front door. She’d known Alan Stephenson in life, had gone to school with him and sent a condolence card to his family along with flowers when she attended his funeral.
Alan looked at her for a long time before he spoke.
Kimberly didn’t hear a word he said. She was too busy screaming. The monster was gone from her head. The dead were not so easily dismissed.
The police cars, fire engines and ambulances all saw Kimberly’s car as they drove to Cherry Hill. No sign of the nurse was ever found.
***
Crowley looked around the parking lot for several minutes and then settled on a car that struck his fancy. He nodded with satisfaction and threw the spirit attached to his hand directly at the vehicle while speaking under his breath again. Amelia could feel the power that flowed from him as he cast his incantation.
“What did you do?”
“Just now? I decided I need a car and Dead God here needs a body.” He stared at her and then shrugged. “What? It’s temporary. I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the damned thing.”
Amelia stared at him for a few seconds and then looked on with a dumbstruck face as the station wagon he’d chosen as a target began to change shape. In a few seconds the old woody had become a Dodge Charger.
“You possessed a car?”
“No, I let the car be possessed.” His voice took on the more familiar tones she’d known when she was young. He spoke with the patience of a teacher. “There’s a difference.” He walked around to the passenger side door and opened it for her. “Need a lift to the airport?”
“Yes, please.” What else could she say? “But that wasn’t what I was asking about. I meant what did you do to Dr. Harrington?”
“Oh, that.” Before taking care of the doctor, Crowley had done what he could to heal every living person in Cherry Hill…there weren’t many left. Mostly they ran across corpses. Jonathan had tried, she knew that, but the deaths barely even seemed to affect him. She felt like crying for every last one of them, but if he felt anything at all, he hid it well. Amelia had watched him walk past Harrington several times before he finally restored the man to a body that was intact. She had no doubt in her mind he’d known exactly who he was saving for last. Jonathan could be very unforgiving when it suited him.
Despite everything he’d seen and endured, Jonathan was smiling. “I just gave him back his little talent. The one I took away from him.”
It took her a minute before she realized what he meant. “You let him see the dead people again?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” She couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.
“Because it’s the least he deserves. He’s lucky I didn’t ruin his body a second time. He did this, Amelia. He may not have meant to, but he brought it around.”
Crowley climbed into the driver’s side seat and Amelia slipped into the car as well. The engine purred when he started the Charger and roared as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“You can be a vicious man, Jonathan.”
“If you’re expecting me to argue with you, you’re wasting your time.”
“How could you do that to him?”
Jonathan was quiet as they drove down the long road away from Cherry Hill. He didn’t speak until after he’d pulled aside to let a battalion of emergency vehicles roar past.
“I’m fond of the truth, Amelia. He doesn’t much like the truth. Now he gets to deal with it. Leave it at that.”
She nodded her head and stayed silent for a while. Jonathan said nothing at all; he simply drove.
They were just moving onto the interstate and heading for Philadelphia before she spoke again. “What will you do now, Jonathan?”
“What else? Sit at home and wait for phone calls or letters, just like I did before—” His voice caught for one moment and his throat worked as if to swallow a very bitter taste. “Before I tried to settle down.”
She looked away from him before she spoke again. “Will you try to have a family again?”
He snorted and shook his head. “No. That’s all in the past. No friends, no family. No chance to get caught in that insanity ever again.”
“Not ever?”
“There’s no point to it, Amelia. I’m not a social creature to begin with. I’ll go back to my rese
arch and let people go on with their lives.”
She didn’t have to ask if he would be lonely. She already knew the answer. He would be miserable, and if she knew anything at all about Jonathan Crowley it was that he’d probably be happier that way.
“No friends, Jonathan?”
“I have a few. I’d like to keep them. And yes, Amelia, that includes you.”
“Are you driving back to California?”
“Well, I’ve got this new car. Seems a shame to dump it on the side of the road, don’t you think?”
“So let me drive with you.”
He was silent for a while, but he turned off of the northbound interstate when he found a proper road heading west. California was days away and she was glad to spend the time with him.
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