by Maynard Sims
“To stop you, you pious prick. It might be time for him to move on…but it’s not my time yet.” She raised the rock again. This time he had time to raise his arms to protect himself, but the rock never came crashing down. Instead blackness descended upon him and swept him away.
A few minutes later the others were together, gathered around the front door of the house. “Right,” Bailey said. “Let’s get inside.”
The door opened easily, swinging inwards to reveal a large entrance hall with half a dozen doors leading from it, one of them open. Pieter Schroeder’s study was a book-lined room, sparsely furnished, but boasting an impressive leather-inlaid desk sitting on a Persian rug. A chair was pulled up to the desk and the iMac occupying the center of the desk was showing views from half a dozen security cameras. The study was empty. “Try the rest of the rooms,” Bailey said. “But keep focused.”
They spread out, taking a door each.
Eventually it was McKinley who called out to them. “In here!”
“Who is it?” Carter said as they gathered around the dining table and stared at the unconscious Leon Sultan, slumped in a chair, chin resting on his chest.
“It’s not Schroeder,” Madaki said. “Too young. Too slim.”
“He’s not one of the guests either,” Bailey said.
“An employee maybe?” McKinley said. “Either way, it looks like he’s been either knocked out or drugged.”
“We should get him out of here,” Jane Talbot said. She was crouched at Sultan’s side, checking his pulse. “He probably needs a hospital.”
“Call Maria in here,” Bailey said. “She can give him the once over, but we shouldn’t let him leave the house. Not just yet anyway. We need to make sure Abe’s prayers have worked. Where is Abe anyway?”
“The last I saw him he was making his way to the back of the house,” McKinley said.
“I think you’d better see this.” Carter entered the room after finishing his search of the upper floor.
Carter pushed open the bedroom door. “It’s not pretty, believe me.”
Pieter Schroeder’s body was lying on the bed, face up, sightless, dead-looking eyes staring blindly up at the ceiling. Scattered about the room were assorted body parts. It looked as if they had been hacked from the bloody torso lying next to Schroeder on the bed and tossed about the room. All except for the head. That had been carefully placed on the dressing table, eyelids held wide open with sticky tape, giving it the impression it was overseeing the room.
“Macabre,” Jane Talbot said.
“Who is it?” Madaki said, scrutinizing the decapitated head with an almost surreal sense of detachment.
“I think it’s Pieter Schroeder’s original body,” Carter said.
“Well, he didn’t look after it very well, did he?” McKinley said with a grim smile.
“Actually, it’s remarkably well preserved, considering,” Bailey said. “I think it would have been fine if it hadn’t been taken from Stonegate.”
From below them Maria Bridge called out, “I need some help down here.”
They made for the door, all leaving the room except Madaki, who stood at the bedside staring down at Schroeder’s body.
“Are you coming?” McKinley asked.
“Give me a minute, John,” Madaki said. “This is a special moment for me. I’d like to savor it.”
“I understand… I guess,” McKinley said.
“He killed my brother, John. I have a few things I need to say to him.”
“Of course,” McKinley said and left to join the others in the dining room.
Madaki watched him go and followed him to the door, closing it and twisting the key in the lock. “And then there were two,” he said softly and crossed to the bed. “I know you’re still in there, you bastard. I can feel you. So show yourself.” He took the Respark from around his neck and laid it across Schroeder’s naked chest.
As the silver touched bare flesh the body twitched slightly and the cloudiness in the eyes started to clear.
“How did you do it?” Madaki said. “How did you resist?”
Schroeder’s eyes were clear, staring up at him, the irises glowing with a slightly pinkish hue. The lips opened and mouthed a word, so softly Madaki had to strain to hear it. “Sultan.”
Madaki looked around the room and his eyes saw the knife with the serrated blade used to dismember the Schroeder’s original body, lying on the floor close to one of the severed arms. He reached down and grabbed it. The handle was sticky with blood. He brought it back to the bed and sat down on the edge, resting the blade of the knife across Schroeder’s throat. “What’s Sultan?” Madaki said.
The lips moved again. The pinkish hue of the eyes was deepening to red.
“What?” Madaki said. “I can’t hear you.” He leaned forward, bringing his face to within inches of Schroeder’s. “I was inside Sultan,” Schroeder whispered. And then, in a movement that caught Tevin Madaki completely by surprise, Schroeder’s hands came up and clamped themselves either side of Madaki’s head, trapping it. “Say hello to your brother,” Schroeder whispered venomously in his ear and then twisted Madaki’s head viciously, snapping his neck like a twig.
They walked into the dining room to find Maria Bridge pinned up against the wall, Leon Sultan’s Beretta pressed against her throat.
“Stop right there,” Sultan snapped at them.
“Okay, okay,” Harry Bailey said, raising his hands in a show of appeasement. “There’s no need for this. Put the gun down. Maria, what happened?”
“I gave him a shot of adrenaline. Should have let him sleep it off.” She winced as Sultan ground the barrel of the gun deeper into the soft tissue of her neck.
“Where’s Schroeder?” Sultan said. “The bastard drugged me. He wants me out of the way when his guests get here. I knew he couldn’t be trusted.”
“So you’re another one he’s conned,” Bailey said. “What did he promise you? Everlasting life?”
Sultan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about it?” he said.
“I know he’s conned about a dozen of you,” Bailey said. “He can no more guarantee eternal life than I can.”
Sultan glared at him furiously. “That’s a lie,” he said, but there was uncertainty there.
“It’s irrelevant anyway,” Jane Talbot said. “Schroeder’s dead.”
The color drained from Leon Sultan’s. “Dead? That’s impossible. He can’t die. Don’t you know what he is?”
“I’ll take you upstairs and show you his body if you like,” she said.
Further argument was halted by the sound of the elevator grinding into life. First it ascended and then stopped. There was a slight pause, followed by the sound of machinery whirring as the car came back down. Even Sultan was listening, easing the pressure of the gun at Maria’s neck and slackening his grip on her arm.
Maria let her body go limp and then twisted violently, bringing her knee up into Sultan’s groin. His finger tightened on the trigger and the gun exploded next to her ear but the bullet missed her and smacked harmlessly into the wall.
“Bitch!” he hissed, but she was free of his grasp and running across the room to the others. Sultan raised the gun and was about to fire again, when his attention was taken by the elevator. It had reached the ground floor and the gates were opening.
“You see, I told you he was alive,” Sultan shouted as Pieter Schroeder stepped out of the elevator car.
Walking without the aid of his aluminum frame, Schroeder moved out into the hallway. After his initial triumphant yell even Leon Sultan took a step back. This was Schroeder, but a different Pieter Schroeder from the one he knew. There was no frailty, no sign of weakness, and the eyes, those watery old man’s eyes were glowing deep red. He no longer looked human.
He raised his arm and pointed to the four members of Depar
tment 18. His mouth opened and all his anger and frustration manifested itself in a sound that was a cross between a scream and a roar.
Sultan watched as each of them, Bailey, McKinley, Carter and Talbot fell to the floor, clutching their ears and writhing in pain.
As Schroeder advanced, still making that dreadful sound, Leon Sultan raised the gun again.
Maria Bright was scrabbling backwards across the floor as Schroeder reached the doorway of the dining room. “Kill it!” she yelled at Sultan. “Just kill it! Before it kills you!”
Sultan fired the Beretta four times, his finger moving as if it possessed a life of its own. The bullets thudded into Schroeder’s chest, stopping his advance. The noise stopped and the red eyes looked downwards curiously. And then they lifted again to stare directly at Sultan.
Sultan fired twice more, and Schroeder’s body sank to the floor. But even as it fell something else was happening. Another creature was emerging from the dying husk of Schroeder’s body, this one glistening and raw, no skin to cover the muscles and sinews, but raw flesh, exposed veins and arteries. With a cry Sultan threw the empty Beretta at the thing that had once been Pieter Schroeder. It bounced from the hairless, skinless skull with no effect whatsoever except to focus the creature’s attention on him. The arm was raised again and a bony finger pointed directly at him.
Sultan backed away but there was no escape for him. He managed a small guttural cry of disappointment before his brain liquefied in his skull. He dropped to the floor with blood and brain matter pouring from his eyes, ears and nose.
Robert Carter struggled to his knees, fighting down the nausea threatening to overwhelm him. He yanked the Respark from his neck and hurled it at the creature. The silver charm hit the dybbuk between the shoulder blades and sank into the bloody muscle. There was a small puff of smoke where it hit, followed by an equally small blue spark.
John McKinley and Jane Talbot followed Carter’s lead and hurled their charms at the dybbuk. They disappeared inside it as the first one had. The assault was affecting the creature. It turned its head, and the red light in its eyes was flickering, growing fainter.
Harry Bailey got to his feet. He took the Respark from his neck and wrapped the chain around his fist. Running forward, he plunged his fist through the creature’s rib cage.
For a second or more they stood there, a macabre tableau, and then, with a shriek that pierced their ears, the dybbuk vaporized in an electric blue flash, leaving nothing but a cloud of sulfurous, vile-smelling smoke.
Chapter Forty-Two
Harry Bailey stood in the center of the room with the dead body of Pieter Schroeder at his feet. Bailey’s arm was still outstretched, still clutching the silver Respark. The other charms were lying on the floor.
For a moment no one spoke and then Maria Bridge came up behind him and put her arm around his waist. “Has it gone?” she said. “Is it over?”
“Yes,” Bailey said. “And yes…at least I think so.” He looked about the room. “Where’s Madaki…and Abe? Where’s Abe?”
They found Tevin Madaki’s body in the bedroom and Abraham Stern wandered into the house minutes later. He seemed disoriented. Blood was still leaking from the wounds on his head, and congealing in his bushy black beard.
“It’s gone,” Bailey said to him.
Stern’s eyebrows lowered and he frowned. “What…yes…good…good.”
He let Maria patch him up but spent the ride back to Whitehall in silence. He wouldn’t even tell them how he’d been injured.
As they walked down the steps from the Schroeder house Jane Talbot threaded her arm through Robert Carter’s. “We won that one, didn’t we?” she said to him.
“Yeah, I think we did. But the real winner’s sitting out there in the wheelchair.”
Jane followed his gaze to where Simon Crozier was sitting amongst a mêlée of expensive cars and some expensively dressed people. He was flanked by two tall, glamorous women.
“Annabel Jackson and Marie Bates. Simon’s new fan club,” Carter said. “He’s now made allies of two of the most powerful women in the country.”
“You mean he now has something on them to use as leverage should he need political favors.”
“You’re a cynic,” Carter said.
“Not really. I think I’ve just grown up over the last few days. I’m seeing things as they really are,” she said. “Are you going to stay at mine tonight?”
“If you’d like me to, then yes. What about the girls?”
“They’re going to have to get used to it,” she said and smiled.
He ruffled her hair. “I love the haircut by the way.”
“Yes,” she said. “So do I.”
A few days later a man, walking his dog, found the body of Gabrielle in the grounds of Pieter Schroeder’s house. Her neck had been snapped and her head caved in. The inquest produced a verdict that she was unlawfully killed by person or persons unknown. The case was a sensation for a few days until public interest abated and the Schroeder case was quietly forgotten about.
An old woman wearing a shawl and a sheitel, lowered her head in deference to Rabbi Abraham Stern as he made his way through the Stoke Newington Synagogue, to a room at the back of the building. He didn’t acknowledge her. He seemed like a man with an awful lot on his mind. Once inside the room he dropped the bag he was carrying onto the floor, bent down and unzipped it. He took out a small leather toiletries bag and set it down on the washroom’s sink.
Standing in front of the mirror, he unrolled his peyos from behind his ears and snipped them off, dropping the hair in the sink. His beard was next. He hacked at it with the scissors he’d taken from the bag, until there was only patchy stubble covering his chin.
Once he had shaved his chin smooth he took a step back and surveyed himself in the mirror. Underneath all that hair Abraham Stern wasn’t such a bad-looking man, although he could do with losing a few pounds. The body would certainly suit him for the foreseeable future.
As he changed into “civilian” clothes he thought about the girl, Gabrielle. He had enjoyed inhabiting her and inflicting pain on Schroeder but, although he had played many parts himself over the years, Nils Larsen, Michael O’Brien, those idiots Alec Rutherford and Bill Morris at Department 18, the thought of getting up onstage at the Old Vic and becoming Eliza Doolittle was a step too far. No, the girl had to go, and he was grateful now he hadn’t finished off Abraham Stern with the rock in the grounds of Schroeder’s house, deciding instead to slip into the rabbi’s body and use the rock to finish off the girl instead.
Once he had changed into street clothes, he checked himself in the mirror again and nodded to himself with satisfaction. He looked like a totally different person.
As he walked from the room and into the synagogue itself he passed the same old woman in the shawl and the sheitel. She didn’t even acknowledge him.
Whistling to himself, the dybbuk stepped out into the street and into another new life.
About the Author
MAYNARD SIMS www.maynard-sims.com
Nine thriller novels, including the Samhain titles Nightmare City, Stronghold, and the Department 18 series novel The Eighth Witch, have been published in paperback and e-book in the USA. A Plague Of Echoes is a Department 18 novel, as is another upcoming Samhain novel, Mother Of Demons, while the also upcoming Stillwater is a standalone ghost story,
They have written screenplays, and one, based on the Department 18 books, won the 2013 British Horror Film Festival Award for Best New Screenplay.
Numerous stories have been published in a variety of anthologies and magazines, and they have had nine collections, and five novellas published. All their stories and novellas are being reprinted in uniform editions through The Maynard Sims Library in 2014.
They worked as editors on the nine volumes of Darkness Rising anthologies. They co-edited and pub
lished F20 with The British Fantasy Society. As editors/publishers they ran Enigmatic Press in the UK, which produced Enigmatic Tales, and its sister titles. They have written essays. They still do commissioned editing projects.
Email contact can be made at [email protected]
Find Maynard Sims on social media including, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Wordpress, Goodreads, and LinkedIn
Look for these titles by Maynard Sims
Now Available:
Nightmare City
Stronghold
Department 18
The Eighth Witch
Coming Soon:
Stillwater
Mother Of Demons
Four centuries ago witch hunters killed the seven Yardley sisters.
Now Department 18 must battle…the eighth witch!
The Eighth Witch
© 2012 Maynard Sims
Four hundred years ago six of the seven Yardley sisters—all witches—were hunted down and killed. The seventh lived long enough to give birth to a daughter. Now, centuries later, that daughter has resurfaced in the town of Ravensbridge, more powerful than her mother or aunts ever were. She has honed her powers, can change shape at will, and has only one ambition—to bring her family back from the dead to seek vengeance against the descendants of all who slaughtered them. Ravensbridge once lived in fear of the seven Yardley sisters, but they have yet to experience the terror of…the Eighth Witch.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Eighth Witch:
The young woman held the dress up to her slender body and stared at the reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the wardrobe door. Her cold blue eyes narrowed critically and she shook her head, her shock of long, blond curls drifting over her shoulders like a yellow cloud. No, it wasn’t right.
The evening dress was purple silk, long enough to touch the floor, with thin shoulder straps and a swooping neckline. It was much too old for her, too sophisticated. She closed her eyes and concentrated. When she opened her eyes again the person that stared back at her from the mirror was older. The blond curls had been replaced by an elegant, dark brown, chin-length bob that shone in the electric light. The haircut framed an older face—haunting chestnut eyes and a thin, aquiline nose above a full-lipped mouth.
