by Tracy Sharp
I’d heard tell of them, but had never seen them before. The mist led us down the road, staying low to the ground. Anyone driving near or through it would see only regular fog. Unless they realized that the mist wasn't coming off the water, and it was moving against the wind.
Technicalities.
We followed the mist for about four miles, Strummer staying on his motorcycle, driving slower than anyone on a bike ever has. If a cop had come upon us, they might've pulled him over out of suspicion of being under the influence.
Thinking of cops made me think of Candy. I wondered how she was doing. She was tough as nails, but seeing a body dismembered and scattered about the grass had to mess with even the most steely of cops. It was the stuff of nightmares. But nothing compared to what it would be if we didn't stop Baal and the mystery conjurer from opening the gates of hell and letting every evil thing out to destroy the earth.
The mist curled onto a dirt road, and continued for half a mile to a fork in the path. Then, without hesitation, it chose the road to the right of the fork, and the demons in the mist became more obvious. Their arms reached forward, long, grayish fingers stretched and then clenched. Blue, ethereal faces rose and fell, wisps of shimmering silver hair streamed behind them.
I could see their ghostly mouths opening and closing, and I swore I could hear otherworldly shrieks of excitement all around me. But the shrieks sounded like they were coming from the bottom of a deep well. The kind of sound that will make you stop and listen, and wonder if you'd ever really heard it at all.
We came to a huge old cottage that looked like it had been standing for generations, but at least two of those generations had forgotten about it. The roof had caved in several places, and the steps to the porch had all but rotted away.
I killed the engine and sat staring at the place, doubting that anyone could possibly be in there.
Strummer walked up to the driver’s door and tapped on the window. "Come on, Dirty Harry. Don't chicken out now."
I tried to sputter in protest but my mouth was too dry. Instead, I opted for a tough look that I hoped came across as authentic, but the smirk on his face told me that it wasn't. At least I was relieved that Strummer wasn’t the android he’d first appeared to be. He actually had a sense of humor, and would grin if the desire struck him. "Dirty Harry?"
"Well, Dirty Harry with a duster? Maybe more Clint Eastwood in the older cowboy movies. Can you do a squinty-eyed scowl?"
I squinted and gritted my teeth. "Come on, punk. Make my day."
I felt tougher all ready.
He gave a kind of sideways nod. "Not bad. Needs a little work. I don't think it'll fool Baal."
"I'll work on it in my spare time."
A flutter of wings and suddenly Rae was standing next to me. I’d like to say that her blatant nudity was becoming old hat to me. I’d like to say that.
"I couldn't see anything, guys, so I just followed you here. Nice digs." She looked back at me on her way to Strummer's motorcycle. "Yours?"
"Yeah. I love to take my dates here. Make sure they really like me for who I am, and not for what I don't have." I tried not to follow her nude figure with my eyes. I looked at Strummer, who gave me a side grin and looked back toward the cottage. Yeah. He was human after all. "The tracking demons have gone inside."
I heard Rae rustling around with something on the back of the bike. "Do you pick up her clothes and carry them around all the time?"
"Pretty much. Yup." Strummer turned back to the cottage. "Let's go."
I followed him up, and within a few moments I felt Rae coming up close behind me. It was a strange sensation. She was insubstantial, and I could swear I felt feathers brushing over the back of my neck. But when I turned to look behind me, she gave me a mischievous grin.
"Is that you doing that?" I asked her.
She looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Doing what?"
I gave her a skeptical look before turning back toward the crumbing stairs and carefully climbed to the broken down porch. Strummer reached a hand out to push the door open, but just before his fingers touched the peeling paint, the door opened with an ancient sounding creak.
"Nice," I said. "An invite."
Strummer peered inside, his neck stretching into the darkness. "To a birthday party, from the looks of it. He looked back at me. "Is it your birthday, Ezra?"
I blinked. It was. I'd forgotten. I was thirty-four years old today. "Yeah. It is."
"Well, apparently someone hasn't forgotten." Strummer's lips quirked up at the corners.
"How thoughtful," I said. "But I'm not much of a surprise kind of guy."
"Baal is. Let's see what he has planned." Strummer pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside.
I followed, and Rae stayed close behind.
"It smells like rot and mold," she said. She'd come up along side me. "And like something died in here."
She was right. That was exactly what it smelled like. In fact, it smelled like a lot of things died in here over the years. Then again, that was what it smelled like any time Baal was around. It wasn't a smell you forgot.
The door opened into an entryway, which lead into what looked like it used to be a sitting room. Tracking demons floated and swirled around a huge, gift wrapped box sitting in the middle of the room, on the old, plank floor. The planks had at one time been painted dark red, but the paint had mostly chipped off, leaving the grayish brown wood beneath. The box was gift wrapped in bright yellow paper which said Happy Birthday all over it in almost neon green. Blue and red birthday balloons decorated the paper, and the box was topped with a large red bow.
Party streamers were strewn about the room, and confetti lay scattered across the floor and on top of the gift wrapped box.
"Well, are you going to open it?" Rae asked from beside me. "Maybe a hot girl will pop out."
"Maybe she's in pieces," Strummer said, under his breath.
The image in my mind was almost too much. I'd seen some horrible things, but I couldn't take it if a woman was torn apart for my birthday because of Baal's twisted, maniacal sense of humor.
"I don't want to open that box." I stared at it, dread sliding up my spine.
"Do you want me to do it?" Strummer asked me.
Of course, I had to open it. I couldn't be a sissy in front of the most powerful conjurer I'd ever seen. "I'll do it. I just don't want to."
"Right. Go for it." Strummer crossed his bulging arms stood back and waited.
I walked forward, putting more courage into my steps than I felt. When I stood in front of it, I reached out to the top of the box to flip it off. The top was wrapped, but just sitting on top so that I could lift it off easily. My fingers touched the edge, and I took hold of it.
But then it burst open and something shrieked as it jumped out, flying toward me.
Candace
Candy's eyes were completely white and she wailed, and then growled as she flew at me. She took me by surprise and knocked me down. I had a number of different weapons at my disposal. All I had to do was reach for them. But this was Candy. I couldn't hurt her, and I definitely couldn't kill her. So, I had a dilemma on my hands.
She was on top of me, hands like vices around my neck, cackling wildly as she strangled me. I'd had any number of wild fantasies about Candy being on top of me. Even with Candy being a little rough. Her handcuffs were often featured in these fantasies. But this wasn't how it played out in my head.
I couldn't get any breath to try to verbally compel Baal to leave her. If I didn't do something soon, I'd be dead. The world around me was fading fast. I raised a weak hand to signal Strummer to help me. For some reason he was taking his sweet time.
Strummer finally stepped forward, and through the dimming light of my consciousness, I heard him chuckle, and then saw him raise his hands and chant something that I didn't understand. Blood roared in my ears, and the sound of my panicked heart thumped double-time just beneath it.
The world grayed a
round me, and then all at once the weight on my chest lifted and the pressure on my throat vanished, and suddenly I could breathe again. The world came back to me in weird, technicolored spots. They kind of looked like bubbles. I reached out to touch one and heard myself giggle when it popped.
“Hey, get a grip, Ezra. Your girlfriend just took off.” Ray’s dark eyes studied me from an upside down position.
I slammed back into reality. Candy was no longer on top of me. I took a few seconds to cough and catch my breath as normal colors came back into the world. I looked frantically around me. Candace was nowhere in sight.
"Where is she?" My voice came out as a croak. I coughed. Candy had quite a grip when possessed.
"She just ran out the door on all fours," Rae said, crouching, getting ready to change into her Raven form. "I'll follow her."
Strummer scooped up her clothes and offered me a hand. "No time for naps. Let's go."
"Very funny." My throat was already swollen. Candace had done some damage. But I knew that if she'd really wanted to, she could've ripped my head from my shoulders. I thought some part of her had to be fighting Baal. That was a good sign. She didn’t want to kill me. Maybe there was hope for a date with her yet.
Strummer pulled me up and I thought I saw something dark pass over his face.
I stared at him. "What? What are you not telling me?"
"I know you're fond of both your assistant and your cop friend, but these situations do not always end up happy ones all around. Your assistant is still missing, and now your cop friend is possessed. I am a conjurer, not a magician. I can likely save one, but I don't know if I can save both. I will need your help, Ezra."
I gaped at him. "What do you think I've been doing?"
Strummer arched a brow, which said it all.
"Okay, I'm not a magician or a conjurer. I'm just a lowly supernatural investigator-slash-hunter. But I have a few tricks up my sleeve. We have to save them both, Strummer. We can't let either of them die."
"We'll do our best." Strummer climbed onto his bike and the engine roared to life as he started it.
I followed him as he followed Rae. The sky was dark now, except for moonlight and starshine, and I couldn't see her flying, but somehow Strummer knew where she was. I vaguely wondered if he had some kind of magical tracker on her or if it was a psychic connection, and the realized that I really didn’t care. I was just glad they were there.
After driving for almost ten miles, a huge bridge came into sight. My heart jumped into my throat. This was Hell’s Ledge, which was also known as 'jumper's bridge' because at least one person jumps from the bridge each year, and sometimes more. The legend goes that the bridge is haunted, and that sometimes people hear spirits whispering to them, compelling them to leap from it. I didn't know if the legend was true or if suicidal people just found the bridge a handy method of killing themselves. Hard to say. But the end result was always the same.
Fear clutched at my belly as I stopped the car and almost fell out of it trying to get to the bridge. Standing on the wrong side of the railing was a tall, lean female shape under the glow of starlight, her dark golden blonde hair flying in the wind behind her. She turned her face toward me and gave me a strange little smile as I approached.
Strummer stood several feet from her, chanting quietly under his breath, he held one hand out toward her, palm facing outward. He was trying to use a spell to stop her from jumping to her death.
"Candy? Candy?" I tried to keep the tremor out of my voice as I spoke to her but it was a losing battle.
"Isn't it beautiful?" She turned toward the water below. "They're calling me, Ezra. Can you hear them? They're singing."
"Who's singing, Candace?" I took another couple of slow steps toward her.
She swayed slightly in the wind. A dreamy smile lifted the corners of her lips. I'd never seen her smile that way. Like she didn't have a care in the world. "The ones who fell before me. They're down in the water, singing. They want me to come and sing with them."
"Don't do it, Candace. It's a trick. Those are not friendly voices." I took another cautious step toward her.
A ghostly shape moved from the corner of my eye. I glanced toward it, and my blood turned to ice. Astrid walked onto the bridge with the same dreamy smile on her face, and moved toward Candace. She seemed to glide. Her feet barely touched the ground. She came up beside Candy and climbed over, and then stood with her hands behind her, holding the railing, as Candace was doing.
Now they were both staring into the lake, listening to the singing voices of water demons working to seduce them into falling.
"Astrid?" I took another few steps toward them.
Astrid let one hand go of the railing behind her and placed a hand on Candace's left hand. Candace let go of the railing and took her hand.
My heart froze in my chest.
Again, a shape moved from the corner of my eye. A small tornado of fog, whirling at the end of the bridge. It swirled forward, toward us, leaving a red haired woman standing there. She seemed to be speaking, but I couldn't hear what she was saying.
"Hey!" I called out. "What are you doing?"
The fog, similar to Strummer's tracker demons, had shapes moving within it, but this fog was different. It was lighter, and the shapes were more substantial and could be seen more clearly when they floated near. The fog moved over the bridge, toward Astrid and Candace.
"No!" I ran toward them. "No!"
But in that moment both Candace and Astrid turned to me and smiled, and then let go of the railing and fell forward, toward the black depths of the lake below.
I launched myself to the railing and vaulted over it. A huge splash sounded, and as I fell, I saw Astrid floating in the fog, being gently lifted upwards toward the bridge. I didn't see Candace, and understood then that the splash had come from her body hitting the surface of the water. I wondered vaguely as I plummeted why Candace hadn't been rescued by the ghosts, while Astrid had been.
Then I hit the water and jackknifed downward. I waited for the descent into the lake to slow, but my body continued to sink. I opened my eyes, trying to see Candace in the blackness. I could see nothing. It was pitch dark in the water. Waving my arms outward and then moving them in a downward motion, I tried to slow my body from sinking, but it was as if something was sucking me into the deep. My body was turning, spinning slowly.
My lungs spasmed, needing air. I kicked my legs hard, trying to swim upward, but nothing worked. I continued to sink into the freezing depths.
Blood roared in my ears, and my heart battered my chest. Something was pulling me deeper, toward the bottom of the lake.
Distantly, the thought occurred to me that the urban legend was true. There were spirits in the lake that sucked jumpers down into the deep. I could hear them whispering, but couldn't make out their words. Despite the darkness, I kept looking for Candace. Then I realized that she'd been pulled down, too. If I wanted to find her, I'd have to stop fighting and allow myself to be sucked down deeper.
The spinning quickened and soon I was swirling like water going down a drain. I was caught in a funnel, and for a brief moment found myself in an air bubble where I could catch my breath. But then the water poured inward, covering my face again.
I was twirling downward in a seemingly never ending water tornado, my lungs burning, and panic flashing through me, until I felt myself fading. My consciousness graying. I thought dimly that I was dying.
All at once I broke through, falling into a place of blasting heat and fire. I wondered if I'd found the center of the earth, and why I wasn't dead.
Maybe I was dead.
And I was in hell.
I looked around, my ears filled with roaring fire. My skin felt so hot I was sure it would peel. But then, if I was dead, I really had no skin. I looked frantically around and found Candace running ahead of me.
Candace!
She stopped and turned to look at me, and then smiled.
A pack of huge, muscular
things with the grayish green skin of dinosaurs and enormous teeth emerged from the flames and ran toward her, their feet silent in the flames. Hell hounds.
I screamed at her. “RUN!”
She risked a glance behind her and saw the hell hounds coming. She ran, but they were faster. And they were gaining.
I looked upward, and caught sight of the lake above us. The swirling tornado in hell's ceiling was just overhead. If I could get to Candace and somehow make it up there, maybe we could get out of this hell hole, back to regular old earth.
But the dogs had reached her, and they all had a mouthful of her in their teeth.
I heard Candy screaming, and as I rushed toward her, I felt bony fingers clutching me from behind. I didn't want to look. I didn't want to see what had me. Instead I kept sprinting toward her.
And realized I wasn’t moving at all. I was like a hamster in a wheel.
Candace’s screams went on and on, her agony slicing through me, ripping me apart. I could do nothing to help her.
I opened my mouth and wailed out my horror, my howls overlapping with Candace’s. I wanted to die. I’d done this to her. I’d brought the darkness to her. I’d cloaked her in it.
And then I felt suddenly cold and wet, and found myself coughing and puking water out onto the wooden panels of the bridge. When I opened my eyes and looked up I saw Strummer and Astrid above me.
"I almost didn't get you back." Strummer pulled me up. "They used Astrid and Candace to get to you. Apparently, you're quite a prize in hell."
"Candace!" I coughed more water out of my lungs, and leaned over, hands on my thighs, waiting until the world stopped spinning.
"She's fine. She was easy to call back," Strummer said. "It was you they didn't want to let go of. Any longer, and I'd be calling back a ghost."
So, the Candace I’d seen had been a trick to keep me down there. Clever mind ruse.
"She's over here, lover boy," Rae’s voice floated out at me.
I squinted, trying to see Candace in the lacy moonlight. Then my eyes found her and the rush of relief made me feel faint.
