Donny slid into the backseat and buckled his seat belt. One last adventure, maybe, he told himself. The usual mixture of excitement and dread bubbled up inside him. How bad can it be?
CHAPTER 24
They drove through a sultry night, crossing a bridge over moon-speckled waters and onto a highway. Donny looked in the rearview mirror. Behind them, Fiasco chugged along on his scooter, hunched over the handlebars as highway lights gleamed off his goggles.
Here and there beside the road Donny saw familiar signs. It bugged him a little, to be so far from where he grew up and to see the same chain stores and restaurants. Maybe the world was getting too much alike. It was differences, not similarities, that made distant places exciting.
Carlos was right—it wasn’t far to their destination. Bayamón was another city like Old San Juan, dense with mostly low buildings. It seemed like the tallest things in Puerto Rico were hotels or cathedrals. Carlos exited the highway and navigated deeper into the city. The farther they drove, the less safe it appeared. It reminded Donny of a tropical version of some of the rougher sections of New York. Buildings were decrepit or abandoned. Graffiti covered walls. They passed a group of young men who scowled as they drove by.
After two more turns, Carlos pulled the car to the side of the road and parked it. Fiasco buzzed up behind them. Donny stepped out of the backseat and looked in both directions. The street was poorly lit. At least they didn’t have much to fear from humanity—not with Angela and Fiasco there, anyway.
“So, where’s the trouble?” bellowed Fiasco. His voice echoed off the walls.
Carlos and Donny both cringed. If stealth was the object, Fiasco might be a problem. “Around that corner,” Carlos whispered, trying to lead by example. “I didn’t want to park too close. If I can sense it, perhaps it can sense you. Wait here for a moment, and let me go ahead. I’ll wave when you can join me.”
“Are we jamming your radar?” Angela asked.
Carlos pinched his thumb and forefinger together. “A little.” He walked to the end of the block and stopped just short of the corner. Donny peered into the darkness, trying to see what was happening. Carlos hesitated. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes for a moment. Was he afraid? Concentrating? Or was he tuning into some weird frequency, like turning a radio dial in his head? Donny thought that might be the reason.
Carlos inched closer to the edge of the wall and poked his head out to look around the corner. Donny had the feeling that an awful thing was about to happen—that something was there, waiting to snatch Carlos by the neck. For a moment Donny couldn’t breathe.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Fiasco spoke up behind him. “They make the most delicious chicharrones in this city,” Fiasco said in his version of a whisper, which was still louder than an ordinary person’s speaking voice. “But I don’t imagine any place is open so late,” he added wearily.
To Donny’s relief, Carlos pulled his head back to look their way, and then waved for them to follow.
Donny followed Angela, and Fiasco lumbered a little distance behind, humming to himself. When they joined Carlos, and Donny saw the building around the corner, he thought to himself: Not there. Please not that one.
“That one,” Carlos said. He pointed to the same building.
This wasn’t anything like one of the old architectural gems that Donny had seen in Old San Juan. This was an ugly concrete industrial beast in a blighted neighborhood, left for dead long ago. It would have been creepy by day, but the moonlight made it even more ominous. The cement had crumbled in places and exposed a skeleton of rusted iron bars. There was nothing but glass fangs left in its windows, and ragged plastic that flapped in the tropical breeze. Trees grew wild beside its mold-stained foundation. Dark vines swarmed up the walls. Even the corner it stood on was in disrepair. Weeds sprouted from cracked and crumbling pavement.
Donny shivered. He didn’t have Carlos’s radar for the supernatural, but he still sensed something off about the place. He almost jumped again when Fiasco tapped him on the shoulder. “To make chicharrones, they deep fry pork skins. Although it can be made with chicken, as well.”
“How are you doing, Carlos?” Angela asked. “Got a fix on what’s in there?”
Carlos ran his fingers across the dark stubble on his chin. “It’s different now. Not as intense. Not as . . . malevolent.”
That sounds good, Donny thought.
“That doesn’t sound promising,” Angela said.
“The thing that was here may be away,” Carlos ventured.
“Maybe. Let’s investigate, shall we?”
Carlos nodded, and they walked out into the open. A car turned onto the street a block away, and the headlights fell on them like a spotlight. They waited as the tiny rusted car drove slowly by. A thin-faced, mustached man in a white tank top stared at them from behind the wheel. Brakes squealing, the car screeched to a stop, and the driver backed up until he was beside them again. He lowered the window, leaned his head out, and stared at the group. “Qué están haciendo aquí?” he asked.
Carlos stepped forward and had a hushed conversation in Spanish with the man. Finally the man raised his window, shrugged, and drove down the street again.
“What was that all about?” Angela asked.
“He wondered why we were here, and thought we must be lost,” Carlos said. “He said it looked like we were heading for that building, and that maybe we should not go in there.”
“Ha,” said Fiasco. “Why should we be afraid?”
“It was a hospital once, with a sad history. After the hospital closed, bad people hung around in there, but now even the bad ones are afraid to go inside. It is haunted, he says.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “For crying out loud. Whatever is in there should be afraid of us.”
“But what if . . . ,” Donny began, but he was afraid to finish the thought. It was the biggest worst-case scenario he could imagine, and it had just occurred to him.
“What if what?” Angela asked.
Donny’s shoulders felt twitchy. He moved them up and down to work the nerves out. “What if it’s Lucifer who’s behind all this? The missing souls?”
“Don’t get all nutty on me,” Angela said. “I told you, it’s highly likely that Lucifer is dead and gone.”
“Mortals have a clever saying about Lucifer,” Fiasco said with a chuckle. “Have you heard it, Angela? It’s about the devil’s finest trick.”
She sighed. “The one where he asks you to pull his finger?”
“No. They say the devil’s finest trick is convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”
“That’s clever, all right,” Angela said with a roll of her eyes. “Now let’s go already.” She set off briskly across the street, and the others followed. Dead palm fronds crunched under their feet, and lizards skittered out of their path.
It was easy enough to get inside. The doorways had once been boarded up, but the planks were torn out and lay in pieces on the ground.
“We should follow you, Carlos,” Angela said. “You’re the bloodhound here.”
Carlos nodded and stepped through the opening. An instant later he gasped aloud, and his hands clawed at the air around him. Donny almost screamed, but then Carlos calmed himself and wiped a hand across his face. “Spiderwebs,” he said. Angela snickered.
It wasn’t as dark inside as Donny had expected. Rectangles of moonlight shone through the empty windows above, gleaming on the floor like cards laid out for solitaire. Still, Carlos took out a headlamp and strapped it across his forehead, and then handed a flashlight to Donny. “Thanks,” Donny said.
“Maybe we should split up to search the place,” Angela said.
“Maybe we should definitely stay together in one group and never ever split up for any reason,” Donny countered.
“Don’t be such a pantywaist,” Angela told him. On another day, when things were better between them, Donny might have teased her about using another outdated expression.
This time he frowned and said nothing.
“Just follow me, please,” Carlos said. “And I agree with Donny. Stay together. This place makes me nervous. But, Señor Fiasco, it would help if you stayed a few steps behind.”
“The moonlight on the floor is quite lovely. I should have brought my sketch pad,” Fiasco mused.
The building was just a shell inside. There were charred sticks and black stains on the floor, the only sign of old fires. The beam of Donny’s flashlight found moldy magazines, a battered grocery cart, crumpled fast-food bags, bottles and cans, and cigarette butts.
Wherever an opening led to other wings of the old hospital, Carlos paused for a moment, and then shook his head and moved on. At last he stopped at the top of a flight of concrete stairs that led into blackness. He closed his eyes, concentrating, and then looked at Angela and nodded. “Something is down there,” he whispered. “But it is not what I sensed the first time, when I drove by this place.”
“What’s the difference?” Angela asked him quietly.
The headlamp dipped as Carlos furrowed his brow. “It’s hard to describe. Before, it was like a foghorn. One thing: loud and significant.” He pointed at the steps. “Now . . . more like a hive. Many things, not so big.” Neither one of those sounded good to Donny.
“Let’s go down and get this over with,” Fiasco said not nearly as quietly as the others. “I know a place back in Old San Juan where the band is still playing, and the dancers dancing.”
“I agree,” Angela said, and she started down the stairs. Carlos went next. Donny made sure he squeezed in after Carlos. There was no way he’d let himself fall to the back of the line, where something might sneak up and grab him. It was far better to be safe in the middle, between Fiasco and the others.
There was a metal door at the bottom of the stairs. It had been torn from its hinges long before, but somehow it still stood, blocking the doorway. A thick metal chain was wrapped around its middle. Donny didn’t like the look of it at all.
“That’s weird, right?” Angela said. There was a gap on both sides of the door. She peered in. “I can’t see what’s in there.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t touch it?” Donny suggested hopefully.
Angela gave it a push, but it didn’t budge. “This is way heavier than it ought to be.” She pressed her back against the door, braced her foot on the bottom step, and shoved, baring her teeth with the effort. The door screeched horribly on the floor and slid just an inch.
Donny cringed at the noise. “So much for sneaking up on them,” he said.
“Allow me,” Fiasco said, and he squeezed past Donny and Carlos. The space was so cramped, he could barely get by. Donny turned and scanned the stairway to make sure nothing was creeping down, alerted by the noise. They were in a dead end with no way out, and would be trapped.
It wasn’t a dead end for long. Fiasco threw his bulk against the door, and it slid backward with a shriek and groan. Angela looked at Carlos and Donny and mimed a whistle of admiration.
Fiasco stepped sideways through the opening he’d created and then into the dark room. His voice echoed from within. “How interesting.”
Angela followed Fiasco through the gap. Carlos went next, and Donny a split second later. He resisted the urge to clutch the back of Carlos’s shirt.
Donny turned his flashlight on the door that had blocked their way. Someone had set tall slabs of concrete against the back of the door, many layers thick, and wrapped the chains around all of it.
“Why would someone do that?” Carlos wondered aloud.
Donny’s mouth had run dry. “Maybe to make it so heavy that only someone crazy-strong could move it.”
“I think you’re right,” Fiasco said. “No mortal could budge this. Whoever did this is powerful indeed, and strong enough to pull it shut from the other side, on his way out.” To Donny’s alarm, the huge fellow set his back to the concrete slabs and shoved the door back into place. He grunted and his face reddened with the effort. Donny looked at Carlos, who returned his wide-eyed glance.
Angela stepped in front of Donny and Carlos. “What’re you up to, Fiasco?”
Fiasco slapped his hands together to brush off the concrete dust. “Eh? What am I up to? Oh! Have I made you nervous? I thought I should put this back. Otherwise someone could sneak down and surprise us.”
Donny nodded, and remembered to breathe. That did make sense. The whole situation spooked him, though. And the idea that they were now trapped in this room didn’t help. He explored the space some more with his flashlight, and his light swept across the long wall that was opposite the door.
“Criminy, what have we here?” Angela said.
The wall was lined with old shelves. On the shelves were jars made of black glass with large openings on top, sealed with thick glass stoppers and wax around the edges. There were hundreds of them.
“I can sense them. . . . This is what I felt,” Carlos said. “There are so many!”
Angela took one of the glass jars from the shelf and held it at eye level. She turned back to Fiasco. “Somebody’s been busy,” she said. She tucked the jar under one arm like a football and dug the nails of her other hand into the wax, prying out the stopper. Her eyes followed something that Donny couldn’t see, something that apparently came out of the jar and rose toward the ceiling. Fiasco watched it too, craning his neck.
Donny looked at Carlos. “Do you see anything?”
Carlos shook his head. “There are many supernatural things I can see, but not that.”
“Oh, right,” Angela said. “Of course you can’t.” She set the unstopped jar back onto the shelf and dug into a pocket of her satchel, producing a tiny bottle that was capped with an eyedropper. “You’ll need drops in your eyes.”
Donny had used them before. They were called demon drops, and they allowed humans to see the auras that every human soul emitted. And, apparently, they allowed you to see whatever was in those jars. Carlos raised his face and held his eyes open while Angela squeezed a drop from the stopper into each eye. Donny did the same. When she was done, Angela pressed the tiny bottle into Donny’s hand and told him, “Keep it. You should have your own.”
The drops felt strange and warm at first, but the feeling soon passed.
“Would you look at that?” Carlos said.
Donny looked at the jars on the shelves. They glowed from within, the light shining dimly through the dark hazy glass. Angela pried the stopper from another jar, and this time Donny saw what came out. He recognized it at once. The little cloud of twinkling, swirling lights was a soul.
“The missing souls,” Carlos said softly. “So beautiful. I never imagined.”
Fiasco slapped Carlos on the back. “They are lovely, even the wicked ones! Perhaps a fitting subject for one of my paintings, now that you mention it.”
“Was that a wicked one?” Donny asked.
Angela peered down the length of the shelves. An angry look crossed her face like a storm front. “That one was. But not all of these are.” She shook her head and looked at Fiasco. “Whoever is doing this catches the bad and the good.”
For the first time, Donny saw the good humor leave Fiasco’s expression. “That can never be allowed.” His mouth shrunk into an angry circle, and he shook his head.
Carlos was still fascinated by the soul as it slowly drifted up. “Can . . . can I touch it?” He reached out tentatively.
“It won’t do any harm,” Angela told him. Carlos smiled. His eyes glittered as he carefully brought his fingertips to the edge of the hovering soul, and then slowly moved his hand into the middle of the lights.
“I can see the souls in Sulfur without the drops,” Donny said. “Why can’t I see them here?”
“Because you’re in the mortal realm, silly,” Angela told him.
The freed soul floated to the basement ceiling, where it slipped through a crack in the floorboards. Carlos wore a peaceful smile as he watched it go. “What will happen to it now?”
&nb
sp; “It’ll drift toward the soulstream and get caught in the current. The way it was supposed to in the first place,” Angela said. “The wicked ones will end up in Sulfur. The good ones . . . not my problem.”
Fiasco tugged at his beard. “The question remains: Who trapped the souls and keeps them here?”
“Let’s ponder that while we open these jars,” Angela said. She reached for another.
“So all you have to do to trap a human soul is catch it inside glass?” Donny asked.
She shook her head. “Not any glass. These vessels had to be made in Sulfur. Just like the ones that hold our fire.” Her brow furrowed, and she looked at the empty jar in her hand. She put her fingers into the top and tugged at it. A quarter of the jar snapped off. She shoved the piece into her satchel. “Cricket,” she said, “why don’t you take a look around and see if you find anything interesting?”
Donny looked down the dark length of the room. The far end was lost in shadows. He took a moment to gather his courage, and then walked slowly ahead, sweeping the beam of his flashlight into every nook and crevice.
“There are lots of empty jars here,” he said. “I guess to hold more souls?” He reached the end of the room and saw something new. “Angela!” he called out. “You better look at this.”
Angela jogged over, and he pointed with the flashlight. “I’ll be darned,” she said.
There was a wall lined with brick that had been blackened by fire. On the floor nearby were different kinds of glass vessels than the ones that held the souls. These were shaped like enormous jugs. Inside the dark brown glass Donny saw something bright and red that glowed and swirled like molten steel. “What is that?” he asked.
“You know how, when people on Earth want to build a fire-portal, they use propane?”
“Yeah.”
“This is what someone from Sulfur would do. They’d bring that,” she said, pointing to the brown jars. “Just pour it out, and you have a nice temporary fire.” She put her hands on her hips and stared at the blackened wall. “So the question is: When someone opens this portal, what’s on the other side?”
Down in Flames Page 10
