Speak of the Devil - 05

by Tony Richards

  Ryan struggled to absorb that, since it went against plain everything he believed to be real. Ithmoteus’s lieutenants were extremely powerful, so how had that been done?

  “Yeah, I know,” his father snorted. “I simply don’t believe the people in this town.”

  “But how does that affect this house?”

  “Not only this place, Sonny-boy. It affects everything we own. The mansion. Our properties. My offices. All of them constructed on foundations of black magic. And now that the Dark Ones have suffered a dramatic setback, everything of ours is weaker than it used to be.”

  Which was definitely not the kind of news that Ryan liked to hear. He’d grown up around easy creature comforts and knew nothing else. The thought of losing even part of that chased every doubt out of his mind. There had to be some way to retrieve this. His face hardened to a scowl, his features darkening.

  “There’s still the third lieutenant, Pop,” he pointed out.

  “Except it hasn’t even put in an appearance yet. It’s taking its sweet time about it, Lord only knows why.”

  “And so …?”

  “I’m getting out of here and laying low. I’ll be back when, and only when, that final devil decides to come through for us.”

  Ryan gawped at his old man, astonished.

  “Pop,” he almost laughed, “there’s nowhere else for you to go. Have you forgotten about Regan’s Curse?”

  “I’m not going out there, you moron. No, I’m talking about Down Below.”

  “You’re … giving yourself over to damnation?”

  His father’s burning orange eyes flashed, his expression going hard as iron.

  “Of course not, idiot! I’m going to sit at Ithmoteus’s right hand, thousands of slave-spawn kneeling down before me. It’ll be rather warmer than I’m used to, surely, but I see that as a plus.”

  Ryan gulped, his own eyes bugging, since he’d never once considered anything like that.

  “And are you going to take me with you?”

  His father wouldn’t look at him. Was keeping his gaze low. But Ryan could see the old man’s lips were pursed together, and he had an air like he was thinking something through.

  And when he spoke again, his voice had a regretful tone. Ryan had rarely heard that, and alarm bells started ringing.

  “Well, Sonny-boy, it’s like this. Ithmoteus has agreed to allow me to take one more person with. And I was tempted to take you – I really was. But I might wind up down there the whole rest of eternity. And that’s an awfully long time, kid. You and me, we’d get bored with each other, right? And so I thought I’d take someone more decorative with.”

  Ryan’s thoughts stopped moving for the next few seconds. But then it struck him who this ‘decorative’ one might be.

  In fact, it struck him like a thunderbolt.

  “B – Becky?”

  There was no response, which sounded like a confirmation from where he was standing.

  “You’re going to take her? But you can’t do that!”

  “Says who? She’ll get used to it. I have my charms.”

  And this was nothing less than sickening. This dirty old man with his beautiful girlfriend? An inferno started erupting in Ryan’s skull. He felt his limbs go stiff, and his jaws clamped together so hard he could taste enamel.

  It was like there was a conflagration spreading out to fill his body. And he had to let it loose, or it would burn him to a husk. His gaze fell to a heavy crystal ashtray on a nearby table. So he snatched it up, then stared back at his father. And the lecherous old jerk still wasn’t looking at him.

  Ryan marched across, with no other thought than to bring the ashtray smashing down on that silver-gray brow.

  And he was about to do that, when he felt a sudden thump against the side of his torso. He assumed that Pop had hit him again, and was surprised by the softness of the blow.

  Until he felt hot dampness spilling down his leg.

  Ryan ducked his gaze, and saw the hilt of a knife sticking from his ribs.

  The ashtray fell from his limp fingers. Then his knees buckled, and he was going down as well.

  He rolled onto his back. His vision started blurring, turning to a fog. But he could still make out the dim shape of his father, bending over him.

  “Sorry, Sonny-boy. But I warned you what would happen if you raised a hand to me again. The upside is, where you’re going? Hey, I’ll be there as well, though in a far higher capacity.”

  Harker raised his right hand in a farewell gesture.

  “You’ll be mine to boss around until the end of time. And so it’s au revoir, not adieu. See ya later, kid.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  The second devil had been vanquished and the whole room knew it. Saul had called it in. Everyone was on their feet, and I could feel our spirits lift. But not the entire way, since we understood that there was still a third demonic beast to deal with.

  The two patrolmen from the car had joined us. One of them was a new guy I didn’t recognize, but the guy holding the cane was only too familiar. Gene Brookner, a genuine hard case and something of a legend on the force. He’d gotten noticeably older down the last couple of years, his dark hair turning snowy at the front, deep lines across his brow. But that only made him look even more craggy. I was prepared to take an even bet that certain types of women still fell at his feet.

  He stared at me with those gunmetal eyes of his and nodded casually.

  “Hey, Ross. How’s life in the private sector these days?”

  “Like being on the job, except you don’t get any overtime.”

  He grinned, then held the cane out.

  “This what you’ve been looking for?”

  “Most likely. Have much trouble getting it?”

  “None whatsoever,” he shrugged. “There was no one home. Looks like everybody ran away, and I can’t say I blame them. That whole mansion’s falling to bits, literally.”

  I wasn’t sure why that should be, but it was interesting news. Gene was peering at the object in his grasp.

  “We found this propped against old Eastlake’s desk. Is it a magic wand or something?”

  “We’re not sure, yet,” I said, taking it from him.

  I stood under the strongest light that I could find and inspected the cane. There were no inscriptions or strange symbols on the shaft. So I held up the quartz end, and it glittered in the bulb’s glow. It was simply a crude chunk of mineral with no real color to it, only a translucent milkiness that peered back at you blindly.

  But was that a small black flaw that I could see, somewhere near its center?

  I stared at it from a variety of angles, but could not make out its shape. And so I asked the judge if I could borrow his spectacles. He looked perplexed, but handed them over. And I moved one of the lenses in and out until the dot came into proper focus.

  It was a tiny house, complete with a flat roof.

  Willets had moved in by my elbow.

  “Any idea where we go from here?” I asked him.

  And he pondered that, then nodded.

  “It appears to be merely a stone, not magical in itself. So physical force is a possible option.”

  But I couldn’t risk doing it in here. Across the street from the station house, there was a small patch of open ground with a few wooden benches on it. So I marched out there, the others at my heels.

  “Keep back,” I told them.

  Then I went across until I reached the bench nearest the center, with an iron frame. I held the cane by its bottom end and whacked the block of quartz against the metal.

  But it didn’t even crack, first go. It took me five hard tries before the chunk of mineral finally broke up. There was a rumbling noise the same second that happened, and I found myself backing off quickly.

  The Deth House, in all its aged glory, started growing swiftly from the crystal shards, swelling in my vision till it towered over me. It only took a couple more heartbeats before the thing had returned to its na
tural size. Some lights were still on beyond the windows, and I wondered who was home.

  The front door wasn’t anywhere near me, though. It was at least a dozen feet up in the air, since it wasn’t just the frat house that had reappeared. The basement had arrived as well, and the building’s foundations.

  But then, the inevitable happened. Given their enormous weight and size, the lower sections began sinking into the soft mud beneath them.

  The house went down some six feet before slowing to a halt, the whole place listing sideways like a grounded ship. And it was in pretty bad shape as well. Mortar was dropping from between the bricks, and some of the woodwork had got badly warped. Deth House looked like it was near ready to fall apart. Which, since I had to go in there, bothered me no little bit.

  But I went over, started hauling myself up. And was nearly to the top, when I discovered I was not alone. Lauren had followed, and had nearly caught me up.

  “I can do this on my own,” I grunted at her.

  “Sure of that? There have to be two guys in there at least.”

  I set my teeth and pulled myself the rest of the way to the house’s porch, then shoved the door open.

  It wasn’t what you’d call exactly quiet inside. Lumber was creaking. The plaster on the walls was cracking as the bricks beneath it shifted. And that massive chandelier was clattering, its thick chain shaking.

  A motionless figure was lying underneath it. I immediately recognized young Ryan Eastlake’s face. He was on his back, his chest covered with blood. And when I saw a curved knife by his side, I got a fair idea what had been going on here. His hands were stained bright red as well, and so he must have pulled it out himself

  I grabbed him by the ankles, hauling him from below the chandelier a second before it came crashing down. Then I knelt and started feeling for his pulse. It was still there, but very weak.

  Lauren snatched some linen from a table and bent down beside me, wadding up the cloth and pressing it against the wound. Which was the way that she’d been trained. But my take was, it was too late for that.

  So I cradled the boy’s head in my lap and rubbed his cheeks a little, trying to bring him back to life. His eyelids fluttered and his lips began to move. He started mumbling something, but I had to bend in very close to hear what he was saying.

  “Why, Pop?” He sucked in a gurgling breath. “What did you do that for?”

  I didn’t like Ryan even the tiniest bit, but the helpless dismay in his voice was still a dreadful thing to hear. Harker Eastlake had done this? How could any father treat his child this way?

  I tapped Ryan’s cheek a little harder and then pressed my mouth against his ear.

  “Where’s your pop?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Ryan, where’s your father?”

  “Hell.”

  And it sounded like he meant that literally. I wasn’t too surprised. It was where Eastlake senior belonged, let’s face it.

  “He’s already gone?” I asked.

  Blood had started oozing from the corner of the kid’s mouth, so we didn’t have much time remaining.

  “No. He’s taking … B –“

  Ryan’s eyes came partway open. There was such a horrid pain in them that I could barely meet his gaze. He focused on me briefly, before teardrops blurred across that.

  “I’ve made some terrible mistakes, Mr. Devries,” he wheezed. “Done a load of things I shouldn’t have. But I don’t want to go …”

  He was being contrite, and I know I should have listened better. But he’d just told me that his father was taking somebody into damnation with him. So I cut across his last confession.

  “Who’s he after, Ryan? Tell me that, and you’ll be doing a good thing at the very end.”

  The young man’s lips moved slowly once again, but around nothingness this time.

  “A name, kid! Spit it out!”

  His eyes were still fixed on me, but they were no more any longer than a pair of fleshy globes. Between one instant and the next, they’d been robbed of life’s sharp sparkle. I went limp, then put a thumb and finger to his eyelids, sliding them together until they were closed.

  Next instant, though, gentleness of that kind was forgotten. Because the house was starting to come down around us.

  Me and Lauren both got up and bolted for the door. She flung herself out and I followed suit. We hit the grass and rolled, then started running. The entire Deth House was collapsing behind us like a great big stack of cards, but with considerably more force.

  It had fallen apart altogether in less than a minute. And the resulting heap of bricks and stone began to crumble into dust, so fine that the breeze around us lifted it away. Before much longer, there was almost nothing left.

  But my mind was busy someplace else. Who in this whole town would Harker Eastlake choose to drag with him into a bottomless eternity?

  Someone beginning with ‘B’?

  I stared at Lauren, and she peered right back.

  And we simultaneously blurted, “Becky Trayner!”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  The frontage of the Trayner house came rushing up in my Caddy’s windshield, looking just as unimpressive as it had the last time. Its roof and its dingy front yard were littered with dead embers from the recent nearby fires, but the blaze itself had stopped a good couple of blocks away.

  No one answered when I rang the bell, and we could make out nobody inside. And so I slammed my heel against the door, the latch breaking off easily.

  It was dim in here, the lights all off. And I was assaulted once again by that array of musty odors.

  “Who’s making that noise?” came a feeble voice from deeper in.

  We figured out where Becky’s room was, and we headed there. Except that took us past the open doorway where her old aunt’s voice had issued from. So, while Lauren went ahead, I paused.

  It was very dark in there, the drapes drawn tightly. You could make out only vague general shapes. But I could see no human figure anywhere I looked. The sheets on the bed were smooth and flat, the pillows all plumped up.

  What was this? I peered in uncertainly, trying to understand what I was looking at. But then a startled yell from Lauren cut through my uneasy thoughts.

  I went hurrying to join her, only to find her at the dead center of Becky’s room, staring around alarmedly.

  “We’re too late, Ross! He’s already been here!”

  There were clear signs of a violent struggle. Half the stuff from on top of her vanity table had been scattered on the floor. And a lone carpet slipper was tipped sideways by the window.

  There were no signs of any blood, but that didn’t do a lot to reassure me. Had that poor young woman already been dragged, kicking and screaming, from this world?

  We went quickly through the rest of the house, yelling out her name. But we heard nothing in response.

  And there was only one place that Eastlake might go with her before descending into Hell. So, in the shortest time that we could manage, we were roaring up the slope of Plymouth Drive, heading for his mansion.

  Gene Brookner had been absolutely right. When we finally arrived there, the sentry post was empty. And the metal gates were partway open – not enough to let my car through, but we could progress on foot. There were no guards inside to stop us, and the front doors of the massive house were hanging open too.

  There was a murkiness about the place I thought at first might be a mere trick of the winter light. But it turned out that it wasn’t that. Clouds of dark dust had filled the air around the house. Whole sections of it were beginning to crumble. Chunks of masonry were tumbling off, and then a section of the rooftop fell apart. And there was no visible reason for any of that. The place was simply falling apart like a sandcastle before a strong incoming tide.

  The lintel at the front door shuddered while we were passing underneath it. And then a crack appeared up there as well, so we moved quickly on. I was already familiar with this part of the house. But con
sidering what Harker would most likely want to do with Becky …

  Lauren was peering up the stairway too, a hardness in her bright blue gaze.

  The curving staircase began trembling, when we were barely halfway up. And then a chunk some four feet wide split off below us, taking part of the ornate banister with it. We went the rest of the way up at an exaggerated sprint. Found ourselves in a long corridor with numerous closed doors.

  Dust was filtering from the ceiling too, this entire level of the house vibrating. We tried yelling Becky’s name but – once again – it got us nothing.

  “Split up?” Lauren suggested.

  “Not a chance. We take the rooms to either side, and we stay close.”

  Both of us had our guns drawn. I watched Lauren open her first door, then did the same with mine. Empty. I glanced over at her. She looked bleak and shrugged, and we moved on.

  Most of what we opened up onto were guest bedrooms, unoccupied. And so we backtracked to the stairwell and then headed off the other way.

  “Here’s his office,” Lauren announced.

  I went across to take a look. It was the private hidey-hole of a true oligarch, done out in brass, mahogany, and lustrous red leather, its air so drenched with cigar smoke that the place smelled like a walk-in humidor. But there was no one in there either.

  The door right at the far end of this corridor, I noticed, was set further apart than the others. Which had to mean a larger room, so we went hurrying to it.

  Flung the door wide open, onto what could only be described as a scene of utter carnage.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  This was obviously the master bedroom, high ceilinged and with a huge, protruding scallop standing out in relief on the plaster of one wall. There was only one small light on, but it was enough to make out shade and detail.

  The place was done out in ivory. The carpet was that color, and the wallpaper, which had an eggshell finish and a self-pattern of tiny fleur de lis. The same went for the linen on the huge four-poster bed.