by J. R. Rain
His arrival at my house had been unexpected. I hadn’t bothered to straighten my house after buzzing him in. Anyone with a mustache like his wouldn’t care about dishes in my sink, or jeans over the backs of my dining room chairs.
Now we sat in my living room. He was on the couch. I was in one of my straight-back chairs. He was still wearing his cop uniform; that is, the long-sleeved shirt and boring slacks. He was rumpled, of course. Always rumpled. I was in jeans and a tee-shirt, and not so reumpled.
“They have Liz Turner under a suicide watch,” he said.
“A good idea, but I don’t think it will work.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s going to kill her, Detective.”
“When you say ‘It,’ do you mean the demon?”
“Yes.”
“And how would ‘It’ kill her?”
“My guess? Probably creatively.”
“And how...” Smithy struggled for words. He sat forward on the couch. His shoes were mostly unpolished and scuffed. “How on earth could it kill her?”
“It has complete control of her.”
“But how?”
“Possession. You’ve seen the movies.”
He stood suddenly, ran his fingers through his thick hair. He was a short man with thick legs. He paced before the couch. “But this isn’t a movie, Allison. Demons don’t possess people in the real world.”
“Then you don’t live in the same world where I live, Detective.”
“But how is it possible? I don’t understand.”
“There are worlds layered over ours. Higher and lower dimensions. Whatever you want to call it. But there is an unseen world that mostly stays unseen. Unless...”
“Unless what, dammit?”
“Unless someone opens a doorway of some type.”
Smithy digested this, and then sat on the couch again. “We have Liz Turner’s psychiatric test results. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic. She’s one of the most extreme examples the jail psychiatrist had ever seen. You name it: delusions, paranoia, hallucinations.”
“Or possession,” I said, cutting him off. “I wasn’t talking to the girl. I was talking to the thing that possessed her.”
“A demon?”
“It called itself ‘the devil’ at some point, but I think it was being melodramatic.”
“Oh, God. This isn’t happening.”
“Denial doesn’t suit you, Detective.”
He ran a palm over his forehead and cheeks, the picture of a man grappling with the Great Unknown. When he was done having his little cop temper tantrum, he finally looked at me. He didn’t look good. He looked...defeated. There was nothing about this case that he was trained to cope with. Hell, there was nothing about this case that anyone was trained to cope with. Except, maybe, an exorcist.
“I did some research on Billy Turner’s house,” he finally said, sitting back. He looked like a man who needed a drink.
“Oh?”
“I went down through the records of the last six owners since the place was first built. Took me all day today.”
“Sounds like a good use of a homicide detective’s time.”
“Not really. There’s going to be hell to pay later, trust me. But, until then, I uncovered some information.”
“Lay it on me.”
I expected the detective to take out a notepad, but I was wrong. He had, apparently, logged all the information away in his noggin. “Seven owners...seven violent deaths. Four of them suicides. Two of them in the house.”
“And the other two?”
“In prison.”
“Prison for what?”
“Murder. In fact, Billy Turner and his daughter, Liz Turner, are the only living owners, past or present, of the house on Mockingbird Lane.”
“And they won’t be for long,” I said.
“Unless we do something about it?” he said.
I shook my head. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do, Detective.”
“What about removing the demon?”
“Did a Beverly Hills homicide detective just ask me about removing a demon?”
“I did, and cut the shit. I’m doing my best to wrap my brain around this. What if we removed the demon? Would that save the two of them?”
“Maybe,” I said. “But...”
“But their damn auras, right?”
I nearly asked again if a Beverly Hills homicide detective just said the word “aura,” but I let it go. Instead, I said, “Yeah. Their auras are black. Totally black.”
“And black means death?”
“Right.”
“And this is irreversible?”
“Mostly.” I decided not to mention Samantha Moon saving her own son from the brink of death.
“Any idea where this demon came from?”
“Hard to say,” I said. “But my best guess is that it’s been living in that house, or on that land, for some time.”
“Possessing and killing anyone who lives there.”
“Right,” I said.
“I’m not afraid of it,” said Smithy suddenly.
“You should be,” I said.
“I’m not,” he said again.
I gave him a half smile and said, “Good, because neither am I.”
Chapter Seventeen
When the good detective was gone, after he’d made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything stupid, I did the only non-stupid thing I could think of: I called Billy Turner.
“Hi, Allison.” He sounded far cheerier than the last time I had spoken with him.
“I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time,” I said, and as I spoke, I logged into him. It took a moment, but soon, I saw him clearly enough. He was in his house, walking slowly through the main downstairs hallway. There were no portraits on the wall. They were blank and dark. In fact, the whole house was dark.
There was just enough ambient light from his cell phone, and streetlights, for me to see him moving through his home. Mostly, though, he was in shadow.
“Are you okay, Billy?” I asked.
“I couldn’t be better, Allison. Why do you ask?”
I decided to lay all my cards on the table. After all, even with minimal light, I could see that the shadow around Billy had darkened considerably since the last time I had seen him.
“You’re walking around in the dark, Billy.”
“You can see me?”
“Yes, I can.”
“But how? Are you here with me?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Where am I, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“You’re nearing the end of your hallway. In fact, you just turned and are walking back through the hallway.”
“Very good, Allison. You are an astonishingly talented psychic.”
“Billy, you need to leave this house.”
“Why, Allie? Do you mind if I call you Allie?”
I ignored him. I was very, very dismayed to hear his voice changing, picking up a guttural cadence I was already familiar with, a sound and quality that I had heard coming from his daughter.
“Please, Billy. You need to leave. The house...”
“The house is what, Allie?”
Was I speaking with Billy or the demon? I couldn’t tell. Billy was still there, though. I heard it in his voice. The demon had said Billy was still resistant. Then again, could I trust a demon?
“Billy, listen to me. You need to leave the house. It’s not safe there.”
As he walked, Billy reached out and ran a hand along one of the walls. “I love it here, Allie. It’s my posh dream home, you know. I always wanted to live and work near Hollywood. Now, I’m making movies and living the dream. Life is brill.”
“Brill?” I asked.
“Brilliant. Excellent.”
Billy’s own voice was intermixed with that of the demon. It varied from an English accent...to something deeper and angrier.
“It has no power over you, Billy. You can still fight it.”
“Fight what, Allie?”
“You know what, Billy.”
“I want to hear you say it, witch.”
“The demon, Billy. The thing living in your house, haunting your house, possessing your house. And you and Liz.”
He laughed loudly, pausing in the hallway. As he did so, I watched shadows crawling along his walls. Clawed shadows. Horned shadows. They swarmed along the walls.
“Please, Billy. You must leave.”
Suddenly, Billy dropped to his knees. The phone dropped before him, too, clattering over the floor. I heard him weeping.
“I fought it for so long, Allie. I tried to resis. But watching my daughter collapse, watching her descend into darkness, madness...it was too much. I don’t care anymore, Allie. Without her, I have nothing. And now she’s gone to jail. She’s going to go to prison...”
“Billy!”
But he wasn’t listening. I watched him roll onto his side, and curl into the fetal position, right there in the hallway, and as he did so, the shadows came down from the walls and moved over the floor...and swarmed over him.
Over him, and around him, and through him.
“No!” I screamed.
Chapter Eighteen
“I like Detective Smithy,” said Millicent while I was trying to calm myself after my disturbing phone call with Billy Turner.
“So do I.”
“But he will be of no help to us, child. Only witches, or something more powerful, can save Billy Turner now.”
I nodded. I knew that. The detective was barely a believer. And he had no experience in the supernatural.
“I hated seeing what happened to Billy tonight while we spoke on the phone. I should go over there. Fight that thing. Get Billy out of the house.”
“You must rest tonight, recharge your batteries and let the answers come to you. You cannot fight a demon when you are fighting sleep.”
I realized she was right. I was exhausted and in no shape to deal with a demon tonight. “Can the demon even be defeated?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“But how?”
We were in the kitchen, but as I spoke, I headed into my bedroom, which was down a short hall, and to the left. In the blink of an eye, my clothing was off and the most comfy pajamas I could imagine were on. Moments later, I was in bed, hugging my favorite pillow. Lying across from me was a dead woman.
She waited for me to get comfy before speaking. “I don’t know, child.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You’re dead. You have access to all of the knowledge in the spirit world.”
“I am limited to what I can show you. But that is not the case here.”
“What is the case here?” I asked. My eyes were getting heavy, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to sleep. How did one sleep just hours after speaking to an honest-to-God demon through the mouth of a possessed Englishman? I didn’t know. I suspected sleep would come in fits and starts, if at all.
“I do not know how to vanquish a demon, child.”
“The triad has never done it in the past?”
“No, Allison.”
“Well, shi—oot.”
Yes, I barely caught myself, although Millicent still frowned a little. Having a ghost lying by me in bed, frowning at my near-use of a semi-foul word should have been surreal and frightening, but I guess even I was finally getting used to it. But barely. The hair on my arms was still standing on end. I didn’t think my natural reaction to ghosts would ever go away.
“Maybe we shouldn’t worry about vanquishing the demon and all that. Let’s just convince the city to tear down the home. Maybe it will just, you know, go away,” I suggested hopefully. I was getting even sleepier.
“You’re grasping at straws because you fear to face the demon. You know that is not the answer, child.”
“What is the answer?” I asked, feeling a sick dread come over me.
“This experience was brought to you to grow, to learn from, and to help another. More importantly, I suspect this situation was brought to you, specifically, to help rid the Earth of this creature.”
“There’s so much I don’t understand,” I said.
“There is much to learn, child.”
“But this thing is so...dangerous.”
“And so are we, child.”
“You will help me?” I asked.
“Of course. Myself, and one other.”
“Ivy,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, child.”
“It doesn’t seem right to call her up and ask what she’s up to, then see if she’s free to help us destroy a demon.”
“She is reckless and wild and more than up for this little adventure,” said Millicent.
“Okay,” I said drowsily. “I’ll give her a call tomorrow.”
What I didn’t add was: I hope it’s not too late.
“Good,” said Millicent. “But first—”
I cut her off. “But first, we need to know how to destroy the demon.”
“Yes, child.”
I suddenly grinned. “I might know someone who has an idea.”
And with that, my eyes closed and the static electricity in the room, energy created by the ghost of Millicent, faded away, too.
I slept like a baby.
A baby who dreamed of monsters and shadows and things that went bump in the night.
Sigh.
Chapter Nineteen
He was called The Librarian.
At least, that’s what Samantha Moon called him. What he was, exactly, was anyone’s guess. However, Sam had informed me that, more than likely, he was on the side of good...and that was good enough for me. She also told me that he might have answers for me. And that was even better.
Mostly, she’d warned me that I might never find him. She’d said that the Librarian—whose real name was Archibald Maximus, which was about the fanciest name I’d ever heard—didn’t always reveal himself. She’d said that only those who were ready could find him. She’d said that even those looking for the Occult Room on the third floor of the Cal State Fullerton Library would never find it.
That sounded like a challenge, so, of course, I headed over there.
In fact, when I asked the clerk at the library help desk downstairs how to find the Occult Room, she only shrugged and said she’d never heard of it.
I frowned at that, and then headed over to the elevators, and pressed the button to the third floor. When the door opened, I followed Sam’s instructions and headed to the west wall, away from where many students were working. I looked for a side room, an annex, as Sam had called it.
There was nothing there. Just one, long empty wall. I walked along it, searching, running my hand over it. I did the only thing I could think of; I asked Millicent to intercede for me, to seek out this Librarian and let him know that I needed help. I reached the end of the hallway, and turned back.
And, suddenly, where there had been nothing but a blank wall, there was now a door along the west wall, an arched opening with the words “OCCULT READING ROOM” over the top.
I think my mouth might have dropped open.
I took in a lot of air, headed back down the hallway, and hung a right into the reading room, noting that my heart was beating faster than it had in some time.
* * *
The Occult Reading Room didn’t look like something out of Hogwarts, or like something that might have been found in Dracula’s castle. There weren’t paintings whose eyes—or even faces—turned to watch me as I walked past. And the Librarian wasn’t a grizzled old wizard with a long beard and twinkle in his eye.
No, the Librarian was a young man, dressed smartly in a trim suit—it was a generic suit that seemed timeless and could have, in fact, been from any number of designers. Either way, it fit him perfectly. His smile was warm. His eyes were bright. His hair was neat and trim and his fingers were long and strong. He could have been a college student working in the Occult Reading Room, except that he wasn’t
. What he was, I still didn’t know.
“Can I help you?” he asked. He was a little too aware, too in control of himself and his every movement, and his accent was nearly impossible to place.
“Yes, I hope you can.”
He smiled warmly, and watched my every move behind bright eyes. “I shall do my best.”
Samantha had told me that she thought Archibald Maximus—who looked nothing like an Archibald Maximus, I might add, was an alchemist, as in, someone who was a true master of potions. In my mind, this made him a bit of a wizard, but what did I know? Samantha had also thought he was part of a bigger network of those who battled evil. Or, as Maximus had put it to her a while ago, he and others like him were to balance the dark with the light.
Who knew for sure, but earlier today, after discussing with Sam what I might be dealing with, she had thought it best that I head out to Orange County...and find Maximus for some real answers. And now, here I was.
“Samantha Moon suggested that I talk with you,” I said boldly.
He nodded, smiling.
“She also suggested that there was a very good chance I would never find you, and I almost didn’t. I walked right past it.”
“Most don’t see it, it’s true. Funny what happens when you simply...ask to be shown the way.”
I could only nod.
He went on, “Just imagine what other mysteries are waiting to be revealed.”
“I-I suppose so.”
“Now, how can I help you, Allison?”
“I...” I closed my mouth. “I didn’t tell you my name.”
“And I didn’t tell you mine either,” he said. “And yet you know it.”
“This is weird,” I said.
“Isn’t it?”
“But Sam told me your name.”
“And Millicent told me yours. We’re even, I guess.”
“So weird,” I said.
“We’ve established that,” he said, winking. “Now, let’s see if I can help you.”
* * *
I caught him up on what I knew about Billy and Liz, and the demon in their house.
