Invitation To Evil: A Max MacAulay Novel

by Sandler L Bryson

  ​“You are a very special kid. You have powers and abilities, unlike anyone I have ever seen. They will take you away, but you will be looked after. I promise, buddy, that I will help make sure you go someplace where no one can harm you again.”

  ​Mattie sniffled.

  ​“L-L-Leslie to?” he asked.

  ​Max looked at Leslie. She had her arms folded to hold herself in a hug. She looked up at Max. Her dark eyes were red with tears.

  ​“Yes,” Max said. “The same goes for your sister. I have friends that know people. We can help make sure both you and your sister are put some place where you will not be abused like that again.”

  ​“He’s telling the truth, son,” Laz said.

  ​Whatever force had been holding the cleric against the wall had released him. The priest adjusted his stole as he moved to stand beside Max. Laz looked up at Mattie.

  ​“I promise you I will use all my resources to help make sure you and your sister are put in a good place, and justice will be served to the people who hurt you.”

  ​The room was silent while they waited for Matthew’s answer.

  ​“O-O-okay,” Mattie said.

  ​The bed slowly lowered to the ground like it was on an unseen hydraulic lift. Mattie lowered with it and floated down to stand on the bed. The hovering toys in the room dropped some of them shattered, sending plastic parts scattering across the floor.

  ​Max sighed.

  ​“Good deal, buddy.”

  ​“NOOO!”

  ​The plea came from Lindsey.

  ​“You motherfuckers!” Greg yelled.

  ​The portly man shot to his feet.

  “Now you’ve done upset Lindsey! You sons of bitches have ruined everything!”

  Greg’s face was sunburn red. With a speed that belied his size, the portly man growled as he ran towards Max like a charging rhino. In what seemed like a blur of motion, Greg was on Max faster than he could blink. The big man cursed as he bent his head and opened his arms in a classic tackle maneuver.

  The amulet around Max’s neck was vibrating. Max didn’t need the amulet to tell him what was happening. His martial arts training had prepared him. Max knew Greg outweighed him by a good thirty or forty pounds; instead of trying to match the bigger man force for force, Max dodged to the side as Greg charged. Greg’s momentum caused him to shoot past Max like a runaway train. Not wasting an opportunity to strike, Max launched a right jab at Greg’s head as he sped by. The blow landed solidly against Greg’s right ear.

  “FUCK!” Greg yelled.

  He stumbled into the hall. The blow caused him to lose balance and fall to his knees.

  He didn’t stay down long. Greg climbed to his feet with snakelike agility. A string of spit laced profanity flew from his lips. Greg looked at Max. His eyes were bloodshot red with rage.

  “I’ll KILL YOU!”

  With a roar like an angry boar, Greg ducked his head down and soared forward to bull rush Max. This time Max didn’t dodge. Instead, he let Greg charge into him. At the second their bodies collided, Max grabbed Greg’s left wrist. Then stepped into the charge. Max twisted around so his back was facing his assailant. At the same time Max pulled Greg’s arm over his left shoulder and thrust out his hip. It was a perfect flip maneuver.

  Greg bellowed like an angry boar as he went flying overhead. He landed on his back with a thud that sounded like a sack of meat being dropped.

  “You son of—”

  Greg’s sentence was cut short by Max’s open-handed blow to his windpipe. Max closed his fist and delivered another punch to the side of Greg’s head. The big man snorted like a tired horse. Then his struggles stop as he sank into unconsciousness.

  Max took a breath of relief. Before he could relax, he noted his amulet was still vibrating steadily against his chest. Danger was still present somewhere.

  “Max! Look out!”

  At Laz’s warning, Max glanced up.

  Lindsey was standing in the door of the bedroom. Her eyes were blood red and tear-filled. Her dark hair was unkempt tangled mess. The mascara running down her cheeks from where she was crying added to her disheveled appearance. What caught Max’s attention, however, was the Glock 17 she held in her hands.

  “You bastards! I hired you to help us and what do you do? You come and destroy a perfectly happy home. Our home! MY HOME!”

  Lindsey moved like she would shoot but before she could squeeze the trigger, Max reached within himself and unleashed his soul energy. A flare of light shot out of his hand and shot towards Lindsey like a purple comet. There was an explosion of violet-white light as the bolt slammed into her.

  Lindsey screamed. The force of the impact sent her sailing against the far wall of the bedroom. The house shook as she hit hard enough to break through the drywall. Lindsey slid to the ground and gasped as her eyes rolled up in her head. Then like her fat pig husband, she sank into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  Part VII

  The House Never...

  Max stood outside on the porch. The rain had lightened from a downpour to a drizzle. He watched as Laz gave an account to one of several police officers as to what had occurred prior to their arrival. Max had already been questioned. He knew that his and Laz’s stories would be similar. They had worked together long enough to know to divulge everything except Max’s powers.

  Both of the children were no doubt being questioned too. Max had asked them to be truthful but not tell exactly what he had done. He had asked them to merely state they were not sure what had happened. He told them to simply say someone had slammed their mother into the wall knocking her out before she could shoot anyone. To an extent, this statement was truthful. There was no way two kids could fully describe or understand his powers.

  Heck, I don’t even fully understand them, Max thought.

  What Max was certain about was not wanting to become some a public attraction like some of the more prominent parahuman figures and crimefighters that had been cropping up Sahalish. Max found that in his line of work, keeping his powers a secret was a boon.

  Regarding the perpetrators, Greg had been knocked unconscious prior to his wife being hit with the soul blast. It was possible the wife Lindsey would say what happened, but 1) Max doubted how much credibility law enforcement would give to her and 2) Max imagined she had bigger concerns than she was knocked out. Both parents would be facing considerable prison time.

  Max saw that the officer appeared satisfied with whatever Laz was telling her. He watched as the priest shook the officer’s hand. Laz smiled as he headed over to Max.

  “Is everything good?” Max asked.

  “Todo esta bien como de costumbre mi amigo,” Laz said.

  The priest shook his head and smiled as he continued talking.

  “Max, my friend, with you it always seems to work out in the end. I guess what they say about God looking after children and fools is true.”

  Max scratched his beard.

  “Well, you are older than me so if I am the kid, what are you?”

  The priest laughed at the comeback. Max joined in. The laughter felt good. It helps brighten an otherwise dark day.

  Another police officer (the one who had originally questioned Max) walked over to join them. He was a short, lean man with platinum blonde hair and gray eyes that were covered by thin silver frame glasses.

  “Okay, sir, you two are free to go for now.”

  The officer handed Max his card.

  “But stay close you should be getting a call in a few days.”

  “No problem,” Max said.

  Max stuffed the card into a jacket pocket.

  “What about the children?” Max asked.

  The officer looked over at Matthew and Leslie. The two siblings were being escorted to a cruiser.

  The officer cleared his throat before speaking

  “Both children are being taken to the station. A D.S.S representative will be there as well. After we talk to them a little fu
rther I have been told DSS will work with your church to make sure the children are taken care of.”

  “Thank you, officer,” Laz said.

  Max grunted a thank you also.

  Satisfied, the officer walked away.

  “Well, you about ready to head out?” Max asked.

  Laz nodded.

  “Sure.”

  “Good,” Max said. “Because I’m tired and I got better faces to look at than yours all day.”

  Laz chuckled.

  “Jenny’s waiting on you, I take it?”

  “Yep. She is.”

  They walked towards Max’s ride.

  “Yeah. She was none too happy about me working on a Sunday. I can’t blame her much. With all the cases we have been doing it seems like she and I haven’t been spending much quality time together lately.”

  “Now, that is an interesting dilemma.”

  “How’s that?” Max asked.

  “Well, because even if you and she spent all the time together in the world that would solve the lack of time portion of her complaint, but that would mean she is spending a lot of time with you, which in turn means the quality piece of the problem is still an issue.”

  Laz laughed at his joke.

  Max gave the priest the finger but had to admit it was a good comeback

  They reached Gemma and climbed into the car. Max strapped on his seat belt and turned the ignition. The engine fired to life with a roar. At the same time, the fading notes to the outro of The Thompson Twin’s Lay Your Hands On Me played on the radio. Max shifted the Fiero into drive when Laz stopped him.

  “Hey! Let me ask you one thing before we go?”

  “What’s up?” Max said.

  His hand was still on the shifter.

  “How did you know?

  How did I know what?” Max asked.

  “How did you know something was up with Greg and that an evil spirit of some kind whether demonic or otherwise was not behind all of this? I mean all the signs were there.”

  Max paused before answering.

  “At first, it appeared the normal signs were there, but I knew something else was going on?”

  “Well, do you mind sharing how you knew this with me? As a priest, I shouldn’t be saying this, but I still haven’t a fucking clue as to how you pieced all this together.”

  Max shrugged.

  “Well, the first thing that tipped me off was when we initially searched the home; my abilities detected nothing spiritual. When I say nothing, I mean nothing as in absolutely ZERO spiritual activity. Now, granted, I am not saying I’m infallible (hell I don’t know the full extent of what I can and can’t do myself), but even with a tricky spirit there is usually SOMETHING that I can detect. A spirit might be very well hidden, but eventually, I should be able to sense the presence even if I can’t pinpoint an exact location. Also, as you know, with a demonic spirit that has not been properly dispelled, there is usually something there that a sensitive person can feel, a lingering sort of wrongness of a sort. With this place (this house) and everyone inside, I was picking up nada. Is that normal for a spiritual infestation?”

  Laz grunted, conceding the point.

  “Ya Veo. So that explains what tipped you off. It explains that it wasn’t a spirit, but again how did you know it was the parents and what exactly was the deal with the kid?”

  “Again, it goes back to our initial visit. First off, Greg was a little more hostile than most people about somebody coming to his home to help out. I mean, we have dealt with skeptics before, but that guy was on another level.”

  “Yeah. He was a livewire for sure,” Laz added. “That level of antagonism and hatred was about something else.”

  Laz’s dark brown eyes looked knowingly into Max’s.

  “That was definitely there no doubt about that, but still he was just too maliciously aggressive instead of just being hostile.”

  Again Laz grunted an acknowledgment. He motioned for Max to continue.

  “Then there was all the damn cameras all over the house and the bullshit story Lindsay gave about her daughter being into film.” Max shook his head as he wagged his index finger at Laz. “Remember when I asked Leslie who her favorite movie director was?”

  “Yeah,” Laz said.

  “You recall the question caught her completely off guard. She couldn’t give me an answer.”

  “I thought that question was a little odd at the time,” Laz said. “I didn’t say anything out loud, but in my mind, I was like why bother asking this girl about movie directors of all things.”

  Max lips curled into a crooked grin.

  “There’s always a method to the madness, man. You know me. I mean, for Leslie who the mother claimed loved films so much to not to be able to name a few directors she admires off the top of her head told me they were lying. If somebody is into something as heavy as they said she was into films the question should have been simple. People who are into a craft can tell you who they like and don’t like in their craft pretty easily. I mean, look at how much she told me about her musical tastes and the bands she liked just in the first few minutes of meeting her but with film she couldn’t do it?”

  Max waved his hand.

  “I mean, come on! You think if I asked somebody into football which NFL coaches they like and don’t like, they couldn’t tell me?”

  Laz nodded.

  “Muy Cierto.”

  Max continued.

  “So that lie then made me think about when we first walked into the house. Remember Lindsey reached out and touched Leslie and the daughter flinched and back away?”

  “Yeah, I do remember that,” Laz said. “I just didn’t think anything of it at the time. I just thought it was a typical teenage girl angry with her parents, in this case, her mother.”

  “I thought the same thing, but upon reflection, it was more of an automatic thing when she did it, primal and instinctual versus the standard petulant anger of a teenager.”

  Max turned off the radio but left the car running.

  “Then in Mattie’s room today—the only people that ever really got assaulted and hurt by the flying toys was who? The parents. Me, you, and the sister were all pretty much untouched. Yeah, we may have been shaken up and moved around a bit, but I think that was more the kid not having full control of his powers. The three of us never really got accosted fully.”

  “So, all that got me thinking about what if something was going on with the kids and the parents. When that idea came into my head, I reached out to our mutual acquaintance Sam. Samantha Levy.

  “Rabbi Levy, right?” Laz said.

  Max nodded.

  “I reached out to her because she had helped me on cases before and she has a doctorate in psychology and knows parapsychology.”

  “Okay,” Laz said.

  Max rubbed his hand over his beard..

  “What I reached out to her about was psychic phenomena. I told her about this case and what was going on. She let me know about psychic activity and the concept of poltergeist. She stated that while poltergeist can be real a lot of times burgeoning psychic activity is mistaken for the acts of malign spirits. She told me people with psychic powers often start to manifest those powers in their early teen years/puberty years OR after they have experienced some sort of trauma.”

  “Hmmm. I would say a child being hurt like those kids were being abused definitely qualifies as traumatic,” Laz said.

  “Exactly! Also, if you recall when did Mattie first show us his powers?”

  Laz’s pondered Max’s question.

  “It was when we went to the house the first time. It was when we went in his bedroom.”

  Max rolled his eyes at the answer. “Come on Watson, you can do better than that.”

  The priest just looked at him.

  “Laz, what I am asking is when specifically did we see demonic or what we suspected was demonic activity happen in Mattie’s bedroom?”

  Laz shrugged in confusion.

 
“Que quieres que me caiga? I remember it was in the bedroom. It was when we started asking about the ba…”

  Laz stopped as the words he was speaking and the thought behind them clicked into place.

  Max finished the thought for him.

  “It was when we were asking about the parents. Then when the parents came busting into the room the activity escalated further.”

  “RIGHT!” Laz said. He leaned forward as it all come together. “I mean mierda… as you said, even when the objects started attacking people it never really attacked us. All the objects were pelting the parents.”

  “Well now, he did have you pinned to the wall like some sort of giant chocolate piñata or something,” Max pointed out.

  Max’s face split into a Cheshire grin as he looked over at Laz.

  “But I think that was because he was intimidated by all the praying and haranguing you were doing. If the kid had really wanted to harm you, he could have.”

  “Okay, that all makes sense. Man!” Laz shook his head “That kid has some psychic power though. I have never seen anything like it.”

  Max nodded in agreement.

  “I wonder what will happen to them? Mattie was not wrong about people wanting to test him or whatever.”

  Laz thought for a moment before answering.

  “Well, I can’t promise what tomorrow will bring. Who can? But I can tell you that I will do everything in my power to help them.”

  “That’s good,” Max said. “I really hope it works out for them and that they both stay together. Right now, all they have is each other.”

  “I know.” The priest ran his right hand through his hair. “When I get back to the church I will make some calls. The first person I will reach out to is Dr. Xiao and his wife. I’ll let them know about Mattie and what I’ve seen.”

  Max grunted.

  Chung Xiao was a physician that both of he and Laz knew. Xiao specialized in neurology and psychology. He helped to research some of the paranormal phenomena he and Laz dealt with. Dr. Xiao knew Professor Levy as they both studied psychic phenomena. Sam just because she liked the stuff and Dr. Xiao because of a more personal reason.