“Evenin’, gents,” Russell said and popped off four quick 9mm rounds in two-round bursts. The silencer coughed — phut-phut, phut-phut. The drivers dropped, stone dead.
Henri and Russell parked and bailed from the car, signaling to the others. The minivan rolled up and everyone piled out. As Kahlil strode over to Russell and high-fived him, and Joya embraced Henri, Caroline, Seth and Josh exchanged immensely worried looks. They were afraid — of their increasingly irrevocable roles in multiple homicides, of the fact that any remaining illusive shreds of normalcy had now fled them forever. But even more, they were afraid of the house itself. It had been a lifetime since any of them had seen it, nightmares notwithstanding. The manor did not disappoint: at once placid and sinister, it towered imperiously over them, as if daring them to enter.
For his part, Henri didn't much care who they killed at this point; if you were white and on the grounds, you were fair game. Only Josh and his party were exempt from this, and not by much; Josh's authority was rapidly waning among the brothers, who clearly had their own agenda, and Henri had no problem putting a laser-dotted cap in Josh’s ass should it come to that. Henri considered the simple existence of Custis Manor an abomination, Dachau as Disneyland. That alone warranted its destruction, in his eyes. The rest was just grease on the collective wheel of karma. There was not a thing they could do to quell the violence that was to come. It had its own velocity, its own momentum, and it would not stop until Custis Manor burned. Fortunately, that was part of the plan.
Unfortunately, there were a few decidedly unplanned aspects: namely, the firefight at the church had not only revealed the betrayal of Rajim but had further cost them the now-dead Mohammad and the wounded Louis, whom they had no choice but to leave back at the house, along with Kevin, Amy, and Zoe. And while the latter were of little consequence in Henri’s estimation, the former comprised the entirety of their munitions team. Which left no one truly experienced enough to set off the bombs.
Henri smiled grimly as Kahlil opened the back door of the minivan. They’d just have to fake it.
The men moved quickly, off-loading gear. Caroline and Seth watched as the first items emerged: oddly enough, they were speakers, cased in black PVC enclosures, and a road case containing a small rack-mounted powered audio mixer and MP3 player — a full-on DJ rig. Then came a pair of tall wooden African drums, beaded and painted, decidedly unmodern and exotic. Caroline looked on skeptically as Henri inspected them.
“We having a party?” she asked sarcastically.
“Sort of,” Henri replied.
Next came a series of aluminum flight cases containing a veritable treasure trove of high-end firepower. Josh had spared no expense: it was like a Christmas wish list, if Santa were a Mossad agent. There were more HK’s — MP5A’s with laser sights and MPK5’s, a dual-grip, close-quarter weapon of choice, highly favored by SWAT teams and discriminating drug lords alike — along with what looked like several thousand rounds of ammo in Gortex-sheathed bandolier rigs. There were Night Owl night-vision goggles with integrated infrared illuminators and precision optics that offered a focus range of roughly nine inches to infinity. Two other cases contained the heavy ordnance: no Tim McVeigh-style jerry-rigged manure bombs, but C-4, military grade, packed in tidy two-kilo bricks, with digitally synched detonators. In all, it was sufficient to blast the mansion to toothpicks.
Henri and his crew suited up, locking and loading, as Caroline and Seth warily watched. Josh peered into the distance, toward the wharf. “We gotta hurry,” he said.
“Relax,” Henri told him. “This is our gig now. You just along for the ride.” Though weapons were in abundance, none were offered to Caroline. She took offense. “What, are we supposed to be defenseless?” she demanded.
“Nope,” Henri replied. “You supposed to be bait.” Henri looked at Seth. “How ’bout it?” he said, holding up an HK. “Know how to use one?”
“Not really,” Seth said. He detested guns and always had, all the more so after today’s debacle. Henri put the machine gun down, then reached into his waistband and withdrew a fat revolver: the former Clayton Pierce’s freshly liberated Colt Python.
“Here,” he said. “Six-shot, point ’n’ shoot,” Henri demonstrated, thumbing the hammer back and forth so the cylinder clicked and rotated. “Gun so dumb even a white boy couldn’t fuck it up. Got a kick, though.” He held it out to Seth.
“Don’t want it.” Seth shook his head. “Don’t need it.” Henri regarded him gravely and shoved the gun in his hands anyway.
“Yet,” he said.
33
Inside the house, they unloaded the gear and quickly fanned out: Kahlil and Russell moving up the massive stairs as the others paused to survey the great hall. The recently defaced portraits had been removed, leaving faint outlines on the walls. For Josh and company, the absence of the glowering visage of Silas Custis was a minor blessing at best, but they took it where they could find it. Caroline looked around, doing a nervous headcount.
“Where’s Joya?” she asked the others. Suddenly Joya appeared framed in the doorway to the grand ballroom, clad in flowing, many-colored ceremonial robes shot through with fine iridescent threads. She looked at once out of place and ethereally magisterial, like something from another world. She gestured inside.
“Here. This is the nexus. This is where it began.”
The others shivered instinctively, wondering how exactly she knew. Joya explained it was a natural power point and the site of the original rift that Josh and his friends had unwittingly opened so long ago. As Henri stood guard she called Caroline to assist her, while instructing Josh and Seth to set up the sound equipment.
“What are we doing this for?” Seth asked as he busily snaked cable across the floor, connecting speakers to the main rig.
“Sound is part of the ritual,” Josh explained, “It will establish the primary anchor point for entry into Underworld.”
“Oh,” Seth grumbled. “Right.”
Joya gave Caroline a small bag containing the same red powder they had seen on the floor of Doris’s basement. “Make a circle,” she told her. “Large enough for us all.” They nodded and began working in opposite directions from where they stood, describing an arcing circumference across the polished wood floors.
They were just finishing as Kahlil and Russell returned, bearing a large, standing mirror; this they placed in the center of the circle as Henri finished rigging wires to charges to detonator, hot-wiring ordnance. He nodded, and the men stripped off their weapons and took positions in the center of the room, beside the circle, and with the drums. Josh fired up the sound system; power lights winked, reflected in the many gilt-framed mirrors lining the walls. He went to the MP3 player and pressed a button.
Suddenly the room filled with sound: soft at first, voices like wind riffling through distant trees, set against a low, slow beat, deep as the pulse of the earth. Joya nodded to Kahlil and Russell; they began to play, synching themselves with the beat. The ethereal voices grew syncopated, weaving through the rhythms in what to the uninitiated seemed a strange and exotic tongue; as it grew, Kahlil and Russell joined in with the equivalent of primal shout-outs, punctuating the message, underscoring its urgency. The mixture of live and recorded audio, reverberating through the cavernous room, created a hypnotic soundscape that surrounded and infused everyone in the room.
The rhythm mounted in urgency, the chanting growing both focused and slightly frenzied, a visceral pagan pulse pulling them inexorably into its spell. As the intensity grew, Joya began chanting to herself, her voice fusing with and riding over the wall of sound.
Joya held out her hand and bade each of them enter the circle. This they did: first Caroline, then Seth, and then Josh. One by one, she reached up and opened their shirts; one by one they bared their chests to Joya's ceremonial blade, riding the crest of the words even as she pierced the first veil of flesh: tentatively at first, then faster, as the pain became familiar. And the blood began to flow
…
…and then Joya began drawing the symbols on the glass, writ in the blood of the Underground. The mirror responded, rippling blackly before them, spidery veins spreading across the flat silvered surface, which suddenly metamorphosed, becoming somehow deeper, darker, the reflection suffused with a strange, otherworldly glow. Their flesh prickled, tiny hairs goosing up like dermal radar, hackles rising. The air itself felt suddenly alive; outside the windows, they could see first dozens, then hundreds of fireflies swirling and banging against the glass, their winking insectoid light flaring and glowing entirely too brightly, their random patterns of flight suddenly synchronizing into a discernible pattern: a spiraling vortex, corkscrewing upward. Inside the drum circle crescendoed like waves crashing against a rocky tidal break, and beneath it they heard, riptide quick, an ominous crackling sound, as if time and space itself were rending at the core.
And as they watched, the mirror irised open to allow them entry.
Joya turned to Caroline, Josh, and Seth.
“Now,” she said.
One by one they stepped through: Josh first, followed by Seth, each absorbed into the surface and disappearing. Then it was Caroline’s turn. She took a deep, halting breath and stepped through, and as she disappeared within the surface of the glass went placid and still.
Suddenly Henri flipped a switch on the timer. A beep sounded and little LEDs registered 60:00, then started clocking back in one-second increments: 59:59, 59:58, 59:57… Joya looked at Henri, aghast.
“What are you doing? What if they don’t get back in time?”
“Not my problem,” he said flatly. “This place goes, with or without them.”
“Turn it off,” Joya said, stepping out of the circle.
“I’m sorry sister,” Henri replied. “There’s no stopping it now.”
It was 8:20 p.m.
34
Custis Manor. Underworld.
Deep in the swamp, Silas felt power in the air. The sky twisted above him as fetid water lapped at the worm-eaten edges of the skiff upon which he stood, glimmering blackly in the moonlight. Silas dipped a long, gnarled pole into the muddy depths and pushed the skiff along with white-knuckled hands. As he did, a shudder passed through him and Silas looked down. Somewhere below lay the bony husk of his mortal remains. Silas remembered his last tortured moments of life, redolent with outrage and betrayal, the vile and pungent waters filling his throat and searing his lungs as he sank thrashing below the surface. He remembered his last glimpse of sunlight, the vision blurring into swirling murk. He remembered his wildly beating heart seizing up in his chest, going cold as the waters that enfolded him, as the spark of withered mortal life passed rudely from his flesh. And he remembered the dawning dreadful realization as he rose into the forever night of his unearthly domain: that he was a slave to the power coiled in this place, even as those he had dominated were enslaved to his designs. In his own way he was trapped, as truly they were.
Behind him, Silas heard the distant yet urgent pulse of tribal chanting. He drew his cloak of shadows around him, thrusting his pole into the dark waters to propel himself forward. The intruders were out there, seeking entry. They would be coming soon.
His ear turned toward another low and urgent chanting coming from a tiny islet before him, upon which stood the small and ragged hut. The faint glow of firelight pulsed in the windows. His progeny were there, making offerings to invoke him. The stench of the nganga beckoned, soon to fill the air with the scent of fresh young blood. Silas felt the hunger uncoil within him. The moment of Transition was at hand.
In the grand ballroom, the mirror stood shrouded in dust and reflecting emptiness. Suddenly its surface crackled and rippled, and they emerged.
Josh came first, gasping and shivering and crumpling to the floor. He was followed next by Seth, who bore the passage somewhat better but stood on unsteady legs. He shook it off, and looked around, his eyes adjusting to the ethereal light.
Too fucking weird, he muttered, then helped Josh to his feet. The two men looked at the vast room, now emptied but for the mirror, which pulsed within its massive gilt frame. From within they could hear sounds, muffled and distorted. They sounded like cries for help.
Shit, Josh hissed. Seth watched as Josh thrust his arms elbow deep into the oily surface of the mirror. The spidery veins striating the glass spread into his skin, worming their way up his arm. I can’t reach… he gasped.
Seth shuddered and joined in, one hand gripping the edge of the frame as the other pushed in, first to the elbow, then to the shoulder so deep it grazed the edge of his ear. A moment later the men pulled back, bringing Caroline out, gasping. She promptly retched, shaking from the passage; Josh held her steady as her head cleared and she looked around.
Oh my God, she said. Even her voice sounded strange, the words reverberating and trailing in little inverted whispers, skittering like rats in the corners. Where the hell are we?
Not Hell, a voice sounded behind them. Certainly not Heaven. This is a place in between. They turned and saw Lucas standing by the door. He strode toward them purposefully, extending his hand. Josh shook it, then turned to Seth and Caroline.
This is Lucas, he said. He’s with us.
Seth and Caroline shook Lucas’s hand, nodding uneasily. As they did, they noticed, in the odd light of this place, that their skin looked the same — translucently dark, like flesh under a black light, and lit as with an inner fire.
Seth looked back at the mirror. Outside, an infernal gale howled, carrying with it the sound of distant screams. The massive house creaked and groaned like a beast emerging from a deep slumber, as though their very presence had disrupted its repose. Lucas gestured to the doorway.
Please, he admonished. Your friends are waiting. We don’t have much time…
Lucas turned and headed for the door. Josh and Seth and Caroline looked at him and quickly followed.
In the main hall they ascended the great staircase, which turned and twisted at funhouse angles. Like the rest of the house, it seemed both moldering and frozen in time; the very walls seemed to ooze corruption. As they reached the landing they saw two figures standing in the long hall, their backs turned toward them as they stared into one of the bedrooms. Caroline gasped.
My God. Mia…
The couple turned then, and their hearts fluttered as one. After twenty years of guilt and nightmare recrimination, Josh, Caroline, and Seth could scarcely believe their eyes. Both Mia and Justin had been transformed, their features chiseled and intense, their flesh supple yet weirdly enhanced, as if their likenesses were carved by the hand of a furtive god. They had become spirit warriors, fearsome and elegant, somehow more than themselves: not of this strange world, yet no longer of the mortal realm.
At first, the others were disoriented and frightened. And then Mia and Justin embraced them, and they realized that these ethereal creatures were indeed their friends. Once, and always.
I missed you so much, Caroline murmured, tears flowing down her cheeks like silvered streams. Mia held her, her warmth infusing her friend’s chill flesh. Mia reached out to touch Seth’s cheek. He was crying too. Josh looked at Justin and the two men hugged like long-lost brothers. Josh saw the stump where Justin’s missing hand belonged. Are you okay? He asked.
Yeah, Justin replied. No pain. Just strange.
It was then that Lucas interrupted the reunion, told them what they must do to awaken the trapped souls. As they listened, he directed their attention to the room they faced. It was one of the bedrooms, moldering and uninhabited. A large four-poster bed swathed in curtained muslin dominated the interior. It took the newcomers a moment to recognize it.
Oh my God, Caroline whispered and looked at Mia. She met her gaze with one of infinite sadness and understanding. Lucas commanded their attention.
Watch… he instructed.
As they did, they saw a blur of frenetic motion appear, bringing with it a swirl of choking sound. It careened across the room like a dervish, a bi
zarre Tasmanian Devilish hallucination, shifting in and out of focus. And the members of the Underground looked on in horror as the phantom stopped, glitched, and came into focus.
Simon, Seth muttered. Justin and Mia nodded. It was the spirit of their old friend, eternally locked in his moment of madness and mayhem, the moment he had attacked Mia. The bloody knife was clasped in one spattered hand, his fingers knotted and gnarled, as if he and the weapon had become one. His face was a ragged meat collage of mutilated rage and pain. They watched as he screamed and lunged at the empty bed, the knife coming up and down again and again, slashing at the diaphanous curtains, killing no one and nothing, forever. They could see Justin tense, reflexes coiling instinctively. It was then that Lucas whispered.
You must do this, he said. Justin steeled himself and stepped into the room.
SIMON! he cried.
The spirit whirled, gasping the thin air. His eyes were black and sunken pits, his expression crazed and savage. In the space of a heartbeat, he was off the bed, lunging and whirling toward Justin, knife raised as he howled in inchoate agony. And as before, Justin met him with greater force, slamming into the ravaged ghost, the two merging into one twisting and gyrating mass. The room shook with the impact, great timbers creaking and groaning from the psychic onslaught. Plaster cracked and fell in ragged chunks from the walls, the ceiling.
It was then that Lucas entered, followed quickly by Seth, Caroline, and Mia. They fanned out, forming a wary perimeter around the warring duo. Suddenly the frenzied motion halted and they saw Justin straddled across Simon’s scrawny torso, his knees pinning the dead boy’s thrashing arms to the floor. Simon’s head thrashed like a rabid dog on meth, mangled features contorted, spittle flecking from the corners of a jack-o-lantern maw.
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