by Adam Dark
“I’m fine, thank you,” April answered.
Peter just stiffly shook his head, and Chase had folded his arms again, staring at the ridiculously grand foyer they’d just entered.
“Very well,” the man replied. “Feel free to have a look around. Just don’t”—he glanced pointedly at Ben’s hands—“touch anything.” Then the man actually left them there standing just inside the door, and they were apparently alone.
“This is some house,” April said quietly.
“Or a museum.” Chase stepped across the foyer to a tall display case along the wall, which housed an impressive array of partly rusted, very-old-looking daggers. Ben really hoped the guy wasn’t about to try opening the thing just to get his hands on a weapon. Like they needed that right now.
“Dude.” Peter had stepped to the left off the foyer, where he now peeked from around the corner and stared at Ben with wide eyes. “Bunch of creepy dolls over here.”
Ben slowly entered the next room, which was absolutely massive and covered in oak paneling, filled with expensive and probably antique bookshelves, desks, and display cases. Peter nodded at another display case, where the same kind of wooden figurines with round holes for eyes and a mouth were set up very much like a museum exhibit on all three shelves. These had the straw, or twine, or whatever it was poking out of their heads too, a few of them boasting what were maybe grass skirts. But they definitely were made in the same way, if not by the same people, as the one left outside Peter’s front door and then buried inside a desecrated cat.
Raising his eyebrows at the case—because what else could he do but think about those tortured cats in the alley and want to forget it as soon as possible?—Ben turned away to take in the rest of the room. Maybe it was a living room; it had a few spotless leather couches centered around a low teak table with a few books and two globes sitting there. There were shelves for what looked like African masks, cases of what might have been Japanese ceremonial decorations and items found on an altar in a temple or shrine. That was definitely a full set of samurai armor in the corner. One display case held an assortment of rocks and geodes, cracked open to show their glittering insides. Tibetan singing bowls and mala beads; iron disks hanging from red ribbons that were probably Chinese; a table of gadgets that looked like a Steampunk novel come to life; a stuffed … was that a panther? There were crowns and robes, literally every kind of weapon Ben could identify, European family crests, oil paintings, faded maps, marble statues—it was like someone had taken all the extra bits from a world history museum and shoved them all into this room on top of each other. Ben couldn’t make out a method to it, but despite that, it didn’t look cluttered. Someone had laid it out in an indecipherably intentional way, and it only made him a little more worried about what the heck they’d actually walked into by accepting that invitation in the first place.
The thick, brocade drapes hung in front of the windows at the far end of the room and right off the foyer, adding even more to the feeling of having stepped into some kind of private collection of … everything.
“What is all this?” April whispered, bending down over a table of metal and glass birds scattered around what was either a wooden flute or a blowgun.
“I’m sticking with museum,” Chase said, joining them in this room now after having perused the foyer alone. “Every single painting in that collection out there shows somebody getting their intestines pulled out of their stomachs.”
April rolled her eyes. “Oh, very nice.”
“If somebody lives here, they obviously don’t know the first thing about themed collections based on—what the hell?” Chase stopped and stuck his nose up against an open bookshelf housing all different sizes of stoppered jars filled with cloudy, clear, or dyed liquid and whatever else was floating around in them. “Does this look like a brain to anyone else?”
Ben had lost his curiosity around the potentially morbid a long time ago. His own past and now hunting demons—almost partially successfully—brought enough of that into his life as it was. He turned away to look for something else not nearly as creepy.
“The guy said don’t touch anything,” Peter almost shouted.
“Chase,” April added. “Seriously.”
Chase removed his hand, which he’d almost wrapped around the glass jar claiming his attention, and turned halfway to face them. “You guys seriously think anyone’s gonna know?”
‘You’d think a pretty successful criminal hacker would be a little less stupid,’ Ian said.
Okay, yes, technically Chase was a criminal. But nobody else knew that yet. Well, the guy didn’t have any shortage of seriously stupid pranks to pull, so there was that.
Turning back toward the shelf, Chase added “I want to know what—”
“I appreciate your punctuality.”
Ben whirled around right before he saw April do the same. Chase immediately retracted his hand from the shelf of jars. Peter mumbled something from where he’d been studying another display in the corner. When he stepped up beside Ben to finally get a look at the man who’d addressed them from the far end of the foyer, Ben clearly heard his friend whisper, “What?”
Because they’d seen this guy before. He wasn’t wearing the long black peacoat or carrying the briefcase, and his suit was a charcoal-gray this time instead of black. But he had the same black, thick-rimmed glasses and the same brown eyes that had studied Ben when he’d lain sprawled out on the grass in Forwaithe Cemetery, just this side of dead. This was the random guy who’d saved their lives from the demon they never should have tried to banish in the first place. The guy who looked so much like everybody and nobody at all that Ben couldn’t remember his face until he was looking at it again in person.
“And I’m very glad you decided to come, Benjamin,” the man added. “Of course, your associates are also quite welcome.” There was no smile to greet them, no hint of enjoyment, no wink, no nod. The guy just stood there, straight as a rod, with his hands dangling down by his sides like he was sleepwalking. But no person would ever have been able to do what this completely ordinary guy standing in the weirdest house ever had done in that cemetery to keep that demon from devouring Ben.
‘And me,’ Ian said. ‘Maybe.’
At least Ian didn’t have any smart quip about Ben only seeing what he wanted to see right now. This was definitely the same guy from the cemetery, and Ben wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or something he should reconsider.
For a highly awkward moment, nobody said a thing. Then the man blinked, as if he’d finally awakened from sleep to find himself standing here with four strangers in his living-room museum. “Oh, you probably want to know who I am.”
Ya think? “Yeah,” Ben started slowly, a little thrown off by the man’s lack of any facial expression or movement at all. “We’ve been wondering that for a while.”
“I’m sure.” The man’s eyes trailed from Ben to Chase, then back again in order to take in Peter and April on the other side of the entryway into that super odd room. “My name is Richard Monday. Welcome to my home.”
Monday—as in the day of the week. The name was as bland as this guy standing right in front of them, surrounded by the least bland things one could possibly put in their own house. “Thank you.” Ben felt like he’d already said this, maybe, but it was literally the only thing he could think of as a reply. And still, Richard Monday seemed either unable or unwilling to continue the conversation without being prompted. “So, your… invitation said you wanted to talk about some opportunities…” Man, he felt like an idiot.
Richard cleared his throat, rubbed his hands just an inch down the legs of his pants, and blinked again. “What do you think of my collection?”
Seriously, the guy better not have put them through all this trouble of wondering who he was and actually driving here just so he could stroke his ego when it came to all the weird stuff he had. Ben didn’t exactly have any kind of glowing review for it beyond, ‘You definitely crammed a lot in
here.’
“It’s definitely extensive,” Chase said. Ben actually turned around to frown at him, wondering what the guy thought he was doing.
‘Having a conversation,’ Ian said.
Yeah, but Ben couldn’t help but think Chase was trying to take this somewhere he really shouldn’t. That was what the guy did.
“Impressive, in some respects,” Chase added. “I imagine you’ve been curating these items for quite some time.”
When the heck did this guy suddenly become an expert on all this? And since when did Chase even talk like that?
Richard just eyed him for a moment, completely expressionless, and said, “Not really.” Then his gaze shifted to fall on Peter. “Step away from the entryway, Mr. Cameron. I’d prefer my collections not to be toppled onto the floor.”
Peter lurched from where he’d been leaning against the wall opening into the foyer, and as far as Ben could see, his friend hadn’t actually touched anything; he’d been like a foot away from that glass case of creepy wooden-and-twine dolls.
“I’m quite aware of your background and exposure to the arts, Mr. Bernadine.” Richard kept staring at Peter, maybe thinking the guy wouldn’t remember not to lean on walls anymore. Honestly, Peter looked like he’d just been caught trying to set some of this stuff on fire instead. And Ben could only assume that Mr. Bernadine was Chase. So apparently their host knew a lot more about them than was appropriate for a first meeting.
Maybe not. Chase had pretty much done the same thing, checking up on Ben’s past so he could throw it in his face, and now he was getting all his highly unamusing stunts thrown right back at him.
Richard then swiveled his head slowly back across the massive living room toward Chase again. “If you want to see something truly impressive, I invite you to step this way.” Anyone else would have delivered a line like that with one-hundred-percent more life than this man offered; he said it like he was reading the impossible-to-pronounce ingredients on a package of processed food. Then he turned stiffly around and walked back down the foyer toward some other part of the house.
You sure he doesn’t have any spirit-world problems? Ben asked, just a little uncomfortable now with how mechanically Richard Monday had approached them and left them again without really saying anything at all.
‘None of those,’ Ian replied. ‘Maybe some mental problems.’
Yeah, maybe. Ben glanced at the others and nodded for them to follow their odd host. Who just so happened to also be the man who’d saved their lives in the cemetery by knowing how to banish—or at least restrain—the demon there, as well as the person who’d been sending Peter anonymous packages at the exact same moment they needed a stroke of luck. Ben didn’t feel very lucky.
“I told you it was someone’s house,” April whispered to Chase.
The guy rolled his eyes, looking incredibly unamused by Richard’s responses, and stalked down the foyer with them. “He knows my name,” he said. “Not sure I like that part.”
“Not sure you like meeting yourself?” Peter asked, coming up behind them. “Big surprise.”
3
The rest of Richard Monday’s house was stuffed with an organized, eclectic muddle of … well, more stuff. Ben recognized a few things—religious tools or spiritual wards—and he could probably pin down at least to which culture three-quarters of these items belonged. Some of it, though, made him shiver and want to forget he’d ever seen them. One of the paintings hanging just outside what he guessed was the kitchen, mainly because of the smell, looked way too much like the husk of Ian’s body the Guardian had made its plaything in the abandoned orphanage. Gouged-out eyes, tongue-less mouth, all of it.
‘That is so wrong on so many different levels,’ Ian added.
Yes. It definitely was. And it made Ben wonder whether the Guardian—or other massively powerful demons like it, had done the same thing to countless other unwitting victims as it had done to Ian’s body while his spirit was trapped in the spirit realm for way too long. He preferred not to think about the fact that it might also mean this Richard Monday guy knew about his and Ian’s little arrangement.
‘I really hope that’s not supposed to be a stab at me still looking like a twelve-year-old.’
If it is, Ben replied, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Their host led them under the massive wooden staircase leading up to the second floor and stopped at two ornately carved wooden doors with intricately looping brass handles. Without a word, the man withdrew a single key from his pocket, turned it in the lock, and pressed down on both handles to open the doors.
Ben didn’t think it was a very good sign that the man kept a room in his own house locked up like that.
Richard all but threw these doors open, slowly lowering his hands to his sides as he entered the room. Ben glanced at April, and while he couldn’t of course read her mind, he figured her slightly widening blue eyes were the standard expression for what he felt right now himself. What the heck did they just agree to?
He heard Peter trying to subtly puff on his inhaler behind them, which was never subtle anyway and meant the guy was probably thinking the same thing. Chase didn’t make a sound, which was definitely for the best. Together, they followed Richard Monday into the room that now, after having seen the state of the rest of the man’s house, looked all wrong.
It was empty. At least as empty as a hoarder of cultural and whatever-the-heck-else artifacts might make of a single, locked space. The shelves lining the walls on either side of them were filled with books instead of creepy jars. A few framed certificates hung on the back wall just a few inches below the ceiling, which was so high, Ben couldn’t make out what any of them said. A massive oak desk stretched across the middle of the room, behind which sat an executive chair that put Chase’s to shame. The entire back wall was covered by a huge drape of black-red velvet hanging by a ridiculously thick iron rod just below the framed certificates. Everything was neat, in order, clean—and totally weird.
“This is my study,” Richard announced without turning around to look at any of them.
Good thing too, because Ben thought his mouth might have dropped open. How weird that seeing something normal right now made him do that instead. Mostly, he just couldn’t believe that this was what the guy had hyped them all up to see.
‘Speak for yourself.’
“Very few people see any of this,” Richard Monday droned, his voice as flat and expressionless as ever. “I hope the three of you know how fortunate you are to be such an integral part of Benjamin’s experience. Otherwise, none of you would be here.”
Why did this guy insist on calling him Benjamin? Chase snorted and muttered something about being integral, but Richard either didn’t hear it or ignored it completely.
“So let’s begin,” Richard added.
Oh, jeeze. Wasn’t that what the psycho masochist always said before he started flaying his victims just for the pleasure of hearing them scream? Someone gulped really loudly. When Ben looked at April and she shook her head, he figured the sound had come from Peter.
Richard had reached the far wall now and stepped sideways toward the corner, running his fingers along the velvet drape. Then he grabbed the golden tassel dangling from the end of the iron rod and gave it a quick, vicious tug. With a dull thump, the drape that was actually two parted down the center and revealed a bright, stark, glistening steel wall behind it. Immediately, Ben thought of a bank vault, though this was missing the circular crank he’d imagined. Steel studs lined the metal wall from top to bottom in thick rows, missing only around the outline of what had to be a door.
Still, their host didn’t turn around to gauge any of their reactions. He merely pressed his hand to the flashing blue panel beside the door, which had to be some kind of biometric system; there were no keys, no handles, not even normal hinges on that door. The panel flashed yellow, then returned to blue when Richard removed his hand.
April jumped at the ridiculously loud hydrau
lic hiss coming from the door before it pulled backward into the wall and slid sideways. A faint blue light came from whatever was in that room, and Richard Monday walked right into it. His head lowered farther and farther toward the ground until Ben realized the guy was walking down a staircase. The man didn’t wait for any of them, as if he knew they wouldn’t be able to help themselves. He was probably right.
Peter stepped up beside Ben, puffed on his inhaler again, and muttered, “Is it weird that this feels like Batman in real life?” Ben just stared at that blue-lit doorway.
“Bruce Wayne’s supposed to be charismatic,” April said. “And at least attractive.”
Ben blinked; he’d never heard her say anything remotely close to something that might have made him jealous and definitely shouldn’t.
‘Dude, it’s a comic-book superhero,’ Ian said, sounding a lot like he was about to start laughing. ‘Get over it.’
“Are you guys just gonna stand here forever, or what?” Chase asked.
Everyone else turned around to face him. “Okay,” April said, “since you’re the one who knows everything, you wanna tell us what’s down there?”
“No idea,” Chase replied, raising his eyebrows. “But I’d kinda like to find out before I get old and die waiting for you guys to grow some balls.” It didn’t matter that he was talking to two other dudes and a chick, apparently.
‘See? It’s not weird when it’s just a saying,’ Ian said.
Ben still didn’t like the image.
“Go right ahead.” April stepped aside and gestured for Chase to lead the way down the creepy, blue, high-security staircase.
The guy just nodded at her, brushed between her and Peter, and followed Richard Monday.
“Too much to hope there’s a deathtrap at the bottom?” Peter muttered.
Ben huffed out an uneasy laugh and shook his head. But he went next just in case.
The staircase was long enough to make him reconsider the whole thing. The only light came from the bottom of it, which Ben still couldn’t see and was starting to seriously question. See anything now? he asked Ian, hoping they weren’t walking right into some giant demon hive waiting literally beneath the old, expensive, highly historic house.
