“So now what?”
“Obviously, we need to make it open up.”
“A spell?”
“It won’t be that, Ross. More likely, a single word.”
“Like ‘open sesame’?”
“That’s two, and you just tried them. And they didn’t work.”
But Lehman knew enough about the magic arts to take a few stabs at the most probable words. He started using them one after another, some of them in English, others in Latin and Greek, then others still in French, Italian, and what I thought might possibly be Romany.
Only that not one of them worked. I kept on glancing at the front door, knowing our time had to be running out.
“Ouvrez,” Willets was trying. “Apriti.”
And it kept on getting him plain squat. But I’d been thinking it over. I’d been trying to imagine what kind of conjure word a jerk like Eastlake junior – and it had to be that guy – might choose. The way that he’d confronted us. The way he’d gloated when we’d found that naked girl of his.
Those final words he’d used.
“What’s the Latin for ‘master’?” I asked Willets.
Who halted for a second, looking puzzled.
But he then breathed, “Magister.”
A round hole opened in the floor beneath our feet, and we dropped through.
We slowed down quickly, coming to a soft halt on the bare stone of the lower level. Firelight was flickering around us from lit torches on the walls. And when I looked back up, the hole had closed.
The walls down here were of discolored, crumbling brick and the roof was arched. There were cracks along the lines of mortar, and a little dank groundwater was seeping through. And the place was even stuffier than above, the air as thick as treacle.
Crimson velvet drapes were hanging over sections of the right-hand wall. And I couldn’t see the sense in that, since this place had no windows. There was a pair of medieval weapons fastened up there too, a massive axe and what I thought might be a halberd.
Up ahead of us was a huge stone block that had to be an altar. It was practically black, and there was the strangest luster to its polished surface. It was about four feet high and six feet long. I went across to it.
A large pentagram had somehow been scorched into the wall behind it. Scorched? That bothered me a lot. But what troubled me even worse were the symbols that were etched into the upper surface of the block. There were a wide variety of them, and some of them precisely matched the ones we’d found carved in the flesh of poor, dead Irwin Maschler.
I scratched at the inside of one with my pinky, and my nail came back edged with sticky, rust-hued sediment. So it looked like blood had been spilled here, and recently as well. On the floor down my side of the altar were a couple of thick lengths of rope, and they looked slightly bloodstained too.
And then I glanced back over at the crimson drapes, stepped up to the nearest one and tugged it aside.
The wall was recessed here. There was a deep, vertical row of shelves. The top one held an assortment of candles, the majority jet-black.
Big jars full of dried herbs were below that. Cylindrical brass doodads with curiously shaped holes in them, which looked like they were used for burning incense. And there was the skull of what I hoped was just a goat.
There were half a dozen big, curved daggers too, terribly familiar looking ones, with those same etchings down the wide part of their blades.
And when I picked one up and turned it round, I found a trace more reddish-brown. And maybe that was my own blood. I put it carefully back.
Then I found, on the next shelf down, a shallow tray. It was made of white plastic, which made it look incongruous in this particular setting. Except it was the stuff inside the tray that honestly intrigued me. Photos. Black-and-white ones. Dozens of them.
I leafed through them. They were of the major adepts to the very last, and had been taken at long distance through a telephoto lens.
“Do I really look like that, first thing in the morning?” Willets asked, from directly by my shoulder.
He’d been captured in a housecoat and pajama bottoms, on the porch of his new home, scooping up a copy of the Landing Ledger. There was a sprig of holly on the lintel of his doorway, so this had to have been snapped a month or so ago.
But what were they for?
Once again, I put them back precisely as I’d found them. Then my gaze went lower, and I spotted something else.
There were a few feet of empty space beneath the lowest shelf. And down there in the deeper shadows, sitting on the cold stone floor, was a big ceramic bottle with a stopper larger than my fist.
I was reaching down to drag it out, when Willets grabbed me hard and pulled me back.
“No! Don’t go touching that!”
I stared at him bewilderedly. His features all bunched up, and he was breathing like he’d run the whole way across campus.
Then I peered back at the bottle.
Its surface had seemed plain and smooth, only a moment ago. But when I studied it a little closer, I could see that there was detail etched across it, so very fine that it might have been engraved there with a pin tip.
Shadows from the floor began to slither up across its lightly mottled surface, adding depth to the engravings. They started to move as well.
And I couldn’t quite believe what I was being forced to watch. The surface was now covered up with images of writhing figures, none of them with any clothes. And they all looked like they were trying to kill each other, pounding and throttling, flailing about. What in God’s name was I looking at?
“I’m not quite certain,” said the doc. “But I do know I’ve no desire to find that out the hard way.”
Then we thought we heard a click, and both our heads came up.
There was a loud bang as the front door of the house slammed shut. Footsteps began stamping round up there, and then we could hear voices. They were far too muffled to make out individual words, but the Delta boys were back.
By the sounds of it, they were converging on the Portal. So I started hunting for someplace to hide.
“We’re invisible, remember?” Willets hissed. “All we have to do is get out of their way.”
We retreated to the far end of the cellar and then pressed ourselves against the wall.
And just in time. A new hole opened in the ceiling.
Seconds later, we were no longer alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
One of them was unmistakably Thad Armitage. The second was the guy who’d been wearing that blazer. The third was the one who’d smooched at Lauren. And the fourth …
Oh yeah.
Ryan Eastlake was grinning wolfishly and almost trembling, his brown eyes glowing with a curious inner light. God, he loved what he was doing, on a level more profound than mere enjoyment. I couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of thrill this had to be for him. But then, as Lauren might point out, how could you put yourself inside the head of a real psycho?
“Those dumb cops,” Thad Armitage was laughing. “You should have seen their faces when my Dad’s lawyer got going.”
And that had been how many hours ago? It was an even bet he’d still be yakking on about his great escape for weeks.
But the truth of the matter was, young Eastlake apart, this simply didn’t look like any group of supernatural assassins. If you discounted the way they had gotten down here, they looked pretty much like any bunch of frat boys goofing off.
“Maybe we should bring a plague down on them?” Blazer Guy was suggesting. “Frogs. Or boils. Or, better still, herpes.”
That got loud guffaws.
I kept as still as I was able, observing them closely.
Ryan Eastlake went across and pulled back yet another of those velvet drapes. It wasn’t shelves that were revealed this time, but coat-hooks. Half a dozen jet-black cloaks were hanging from them. Willets and I exchanged glances.
Ryan began handing them out, his wide grin melting off.
“Settle down, you guys,” he told the others. “Ceremonies like these are supposed be solemn.”
“Dude, you’re taking all this way too seriously, as usual,” Thad came back.
“Shut up, doofus. Put the robe on.”
Thad ought to have bridled at that, but he complied immediately. And the other two boys did the same, leaving me to wonder why they let themselves be bossed around like that. But that seemed to be the case – I had no choice but to accept it. And before much longer, all four Deth boys were transformed into the blacked-out figures we’d encountered, their hands no longer visible, their faces masked in shadow.
Ryan went back to the shelves and started fetching objects from them, setting them down methodically on the surface of the altar. Half a dozen of those black candles, and then clumps of dried herb.
And something else. A single photograph. I didn’t dare move, so I had to squint to make out who it was. But it turned out to be another major adept, Kurt van Friesling this time, handsome in a flat-faced way, with pale, bland eyes and smooth hair that was even lighter than my own. He lived in a big, modernistic house some half the way up Sycamore Hill. And at this hour of the evening, he’d be more than likely home.
His photograph was laid at the dead center of the altar. Ryan struck a match, applying it to every wick. The others gathered round.
Then he began to chant in a low, droning monotone. I noticed he was making all the running here, the other guys spectators to this and little more.
The yellow dazzle from the torches flickered, and the shadows in the cellar seemed to grow much longer. Ryan kept on chanting, and I couldn’t even tell what language he was using. Something guttural and husking… from the Middle East, perhaps.
He went on like that for several minutes. His voice rose. And then he reached across and took a clump of herb between his forefinger and thumb. And dropped it onto the flame of the nearest candle.
It went up in a crackling swirl of sparks, accompanied by a puff of thick, greenish-black smoke. An awful stench began to fill the air around us. That wasn’t the only thing. The atmosphere down here seemed to have become even thicker, tiny swirls and ripples showing in it and then drifting through.
When I glanced across at Doc Willets, there was a taut wariness to his expression. I acknowledged that, then kept on watching.
“Quodas,” Ryan was intoning. “Shenmat. Malchitor.”
A different bunch of herbs went on the candle. And the pall of smoke was dark red this time.
“Quado mivannas, tohet vador. Shap. Tatock. Trudack. Esvahain.”
Then he picked up Kurt’s photo and applied its corner to the flame.
It was only a thin piece of card, I knew that. But there’s something genuinely unsettling about watching the face of somebody you know get all burned up.
Ryan held on till the final second, and then let the last remaining corner go. It spiraled down onto the altar, where it blackened, curling up.
“He don’t look so important now,” I heard Thad murmur.
Someone snickered. Ryan’s friends were still treating this whole thing as a joke.
I believed I’d figured out what their leader was up to, though. Had we just watched Kurt van Friesling being robbed of all his powers?
Ryan had gone wholly quiet. He started moving over to the shelves again.
“Dude, why do you do this every time?” Thad protested. “What is this about?”
And he started trying to follow.
Ryan stretched an arm toward him, the hem of his sleeve dropping back. His fingers were displayed, spread open wide. And then I saw a flash right at the center of his empty palm.
Everybody else who had been moving stopped. They turned back mechanically toward the altar, their heads ducking low. So Ryan had some kind of power we had not previously guessed at. What was this kid, some evil mirror image of the adepts?
He stooped down, taking hold of the ceramic bottle I’d been trying to get a look at. It was obviously heavy, and he didn’t try to lift it. Simply dragged it out, its base scraping on the stones. He muttered something underneath his breath.
And then he took the bottle’s stopper in both hands and yanked it out.
And an instant later, I was feeling truly grateful Willets had prevented me from touching the thing.
Because something damned unsettling was lifting out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
There were several somethings coming out of it, in point of fact. And suddenly, it got a whole lot harder just to keep myself from moving.
They made a noise as they emerged, a high flurry of piercing shrieks. And once out into the air of the cellar, they began hurtling around so fast my gaze could barely follow them. But then a face shot past me.
I supposed, at one time, it had been a human face. Both its eyes were still in place, except they no longer had pupils. One of its ears was gone, and the other was torn and ragged at its edges. There was practically no hair, merely a few wavy strands. And there were patches right across the cheeks and temples where the flesh had decomposed, showing the pale bone underneath.
There was no skin at all around the mouth, the jaws and gums entirely bare. A full set of teeth was showing, all of which were sharply pointed. And the face was partially translucent.
The rest of its body was a streaming, shapeless blur. So this was some manner of wraith or phantom. I jolted, then noticed there were two more of the things. And the significance of that became apparent very quickly.
Ryan’s companions looked like they were coming round a little. But they weren’t given the time to make a proper move, because the wraiths were on them in a flash.
They disappeared inside the kids’ hoods, vanishing altogether. All three frat boys shuddered violently and then went slack. And I didn’t need to have explained to me what had just happened. Thad and his two buddies raised themselves to their full height, standing rigidly as pines. I watched Ryan nodding with a chilly satisfaction.
He rejoined them at the altar. And when he resumed the ceremony, they joined in, using those odd, alien words.
They finally drew to a halt and Ryan gestured to them. And they followed him in single file back to the shelves. Each of them was handed a dagger that he had fetched down.
“You know what to do?” he asked
“Sure, dude. It’s not like we’re short of practice.”
That was Thad, his voice unchanged. Which puzzled me a little, since it wasn’t what I’d been expecting.
I knew where they were going, though. A startled sense of urgency washed through me. I glanced at Willets, who was still transfixed, and tapped him on his elbow. All he did was blink.
I tried to signal with my eyes, rolling them toward the ceiling. But he kept on staring at me blankly, so I mouthed the words, “Let’s go!”
And he finally got my drift. He bent his elbows, raising both his forearms to chest height.
The room started to blur. Then we were hurtling out, and wound up rematerializing near the little grove of trees that partially hid the Deth House.
I was already yanking out my cell and speed-dialing Saul Hobart.
“They’re going for Kurt!” I yelled, as soon as he picked up. “At least three of them, this time!”
The only thing he said was, “On it,” before hanging up.
There were already patrolmen guarding Kurt van Friesling, and I knew Saul would alert them first, then call in reinforcements. Unless anything went badly wrong, that particular disaster ought to be averted. So I turned my full attention back to Willets.
“Sorry I was slow to catch on, Ross.” He looked more hunched than he had been, like what he had been witness to had deflated him somewhat. “But I was simply so astonished, so appalled …”
He stared back bleakly at the Deth House, and I did the same. I couldn’t stop my teeth from grating, trying to hold in a curse. What I’d watched had no real place inside Raine’s Landing. This was nuts.
“That langua
ge he was using? Aramaic?”
“Absolutely not. At a guess, I’d say some kind of demonic tongue. As to how he learnt it … that is something I would not like to conjecture on.”
“And those things in the bottle?”
“Evil ghosts. Malevolent spirits. The type who possess living human beings.”
“But Thad Armitage sounded the same way he always does.”
“Well, of course he did. Those creatures have no physical form. They have to use the person’s who they’ve gotten hold of. Which means that one of them is using Thad’s voice-box, and even being guided by the habitual pattern of his thoughts.”
I managed to take that in, but only with a serious deal of difficulty.
“So … it’s not really Thad speaking any more?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“And so …?” I turned the rest of this business over carefully as well, making sure I’d gotten it all straight. “The other Delta boys don’t even know what they’ve been doing?”
“Not by the looks of it. They still appear to think this is some kind of silly game.”
“Ryan Eastlake knows, though. Yeah?”
“Ryan Eastlake is controlling it. He’s behind every part of this, the catalyst and cause of it.”
Then the doc’s gaze narrowed and he froze. When I tried to ask him what was up, he raised a hand for silence. His head was tilted to one side, and he looked like he was concentrating very hard.
“What is it?” I finally hissed.
“I can’t make out the words, but I do recognize one of the voices.” Willets glanced across at me, then nodded at the house. “The others might have gone, but I think Ryan Eastlake’s still in there. He remained in the basement when they left. And now, he’s deep in conversation.”
But there’d been no one else down there, asides from us.
“With who?”
“With no one remotely human by the sounds of it, Ross. At a guess, I’d say a devil.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Detective Sergeant Ritchie Vallencourt was crouching in the shadows, and was shaking and perspiring faintly from adrenaline, since he’d been forced to act real fast. He’d been just around the corner from van Friesling’s home when the call had come in that an attack was on the way. And he had gotten there to find the two uniformed men who had been charged to guard the adept in the first stages of panic, unsure how to act.
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