by J. S. Bailey
“I don’t need help,” Bradley said to him, backing up a step. For the first time, he noticed that this so-called meeting room didn’t have any windows through which he might escape. Why had he come here, anyway? The fog was starting to roll in again, obscuring many of the details from the past hour. Something important hid in the swirling mists inside his head. Something he’d forgotten about when he’d found Jess in his—
The man who called himself Frankie had put a dinner plate-sized hand on Bradley’s shoulder and was easing him back onto the ugly excuse for a couch. “Be calm,” Frankie said. “If you cooperate, everything will go smoothly for you.”
Bradley’s hands started shaking. “There’s something…”
“Yes?”
“Important.”
“We know,” Bobby said. He rubbed a red spot on his jaw where Bradley had struck him. “That’s why you’re here.”
“No! You don’t understand.” Bradley forced himself to think through the fog. What had it been? Words. He’d overheard a conversation somewhere. A terrible conversation. Had it been at the bar? He had gone to the bar earlier that evening, hadn’t he? It was so hard to remember. He’d been there, and then came home to his plants and his lab and then Jess who wasn’t Jess at all, but a figment of his own delusions.
“What don’t we understand?” Bobby asked. Bradley didn’t get why the kid wanted to help him, even if “helping” in this instance meant being shut inside this room against his will.
Bradley cleared his throat and looked from Bobby to the immense Frankie. “Someone said something terrible.”
The two men exchanged a glance. “Would you care to elaborate?” Frankie asked, his face impassive.
“I—I would if I could. I don’t really remember. It’s so confusing.”
“It’s natural to be confused in your condition,” Frankie said.
“My condition?”
“You’ve been having unnatural thoughts, right?” Bobby asked, slightly more emboldened now that his buddy was here to help him keep Bradley prisoner. “Stuff you’d never think of on your own.”
“Well, yeah. I told you I think I’m going crazy.” At least he thought he had.
“You’re not going crazy,” Frankie said. “I’d say what you’re going through is a perfectly natural phenomenon, if it wasn’t in fact entirely unnatural.”
Bradley gave him a blank stare. The guy was speaking gibberish.
“There are spirits out there,” Bobby said. “Some of them prey on people. One is preying on you.”
A bead of sweat rolled down the back of Bradley’s neck. “How could you know?”
“Because I can see it.”
The room seemed to tilt. Bradley grabbed onto the arm of the couch to prevent himself from slumping out of it. He opened his mouth to say something, but then he felt himself drift away, and when at last he came back to himself, Frankie was forcing him back down onto the couch and blood trickled from Bobby’s lip.
“I can help you,” Bobby said, “but only if you want to be helped. I’m going to need your cooperation if we’re going to get rid of this thing.”
Bradley’s teeth chattered. “You can make me normal again?”
“I’ll do my best. Remember, though, you’ll have to work with me.”
“I—I will. Tell me what I need to do.”
KAORI STAYED up late that night in front of the television, only paying partial attention to the Star Trek movie she’d switched on partway through. Captain Kirk and the gang were trying to figure out how to save the Earth from being destroyed by an alien space probe, and Kaori was trying to figure out how she and Matt could afford even the most frugal trip to the UK.
Neither she nor Matt had jobs—not real ones, anyway. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, drifting from one place to another like leaves on the wind, helping those in need and picking up odd jobs wherever they could find them.
Matt did have a sizeable bank account from when he’d retired early from the software industry, but that money wouldn’t last long if they tapped into it for airfare, which cost more than either of them had anticipated.
Father, if it be your will, lead us there. If not, show us where we must go.
As much as she hated to admit it, her gut told her that now was not the proper time to visit the country of her dreams. She’d just have to hop on a plane once she had enough dough squirreled away from her odd jobs, hopefully before the end of next year because she never had been too fond of waiting for spectacular things to happen. Was anyone?
While she continued to ponder her financial situation and how she might better it, the unease from earlier settled back in like a shroud, and Kaori couldn’t place its source.
She curled up into the corner of the couch and plucked her bottle of nail polish off the end table so she could touch up her lovely neon blue nails. Matt had gone to bed an hour or so before, and she could hear his snores rattling from beyond his bedroom doorway.
Then she heard a thump.
Kaori set the nail polish bottle aside, muted the television, and listened. Had Matt knocked into something while turning over in his sleep? No, the sound had been more distant than that. Maybe it had just been the wind blowing stuff around outside.
There came a second thump, followed by what sounded like unintelligible words. Kaori’s pulse spiked. Who could be outside at this hour, and at this time of year when no one else was on the beach but a caretaker and her dog?
Kaori switched off the television and the light, then crept through the shadows toward the wide living room window that provided a somewhat dreary ocean view during the day when the blinds weren’t closed. She held an eye to the slats and caught movement in the shadows.
If not for the words she’d thought she heard spoken just beyond the walls, she would have said it was just a stray animal prowling around for food.
Thump. Thump-thump.
“This is just great.” Kaori tore herself from the window and ran into Matt’s bedroom. “Wake up!” she hissed. “Someone’s outside!”
Matt hopped out of bed in seconds, taking little time to adjust from slumber to wakefulness. “Did you see them?”
“No, heard. Listen.”
Matt flinched when a rather obvious crash came from the far side of the beach house. By the sound of it, someone had just knocked over the garbage cans while blundering around like a blind fool.
His lips drew into a thin line. “Call the police.”
“Shouldn’t we go and check to see—”
“This isn’t anything remotely innocent. Call them now.” Matt jammed his feet into shoes, and Kaori rushed from the room, trying to remember where she’d left her cell phone.
She flicked on the living room light and nearly leapt out of her skin when she saw the apparition of her long-since deceased paternal grandmother standing between her and the television, looking inappropriately cross.
“You’re no good, Kaori!” Baba wheezed, shaking an arthritic finger at her. She wore a blue, floral-print kimono and gold house slippers. “Running off with that white man was a disgrace! No job, no life, just gallivanting around the country with him. It’s shameful!”
Kaori hurried past the apparition, which had only been sent to distract her during a trying moment. You’re not really there, Baba. You’re in heaven where you belong.
Kaori eyed her phone sitting on the kitchen counter. The sound of shattering glass carried through the house the moment she picked it up. Trying not to panic, she went to make the 911 call and found that her phone was dead.
That wasn’t inconvenient, or anything.
She shoved it into her pocket.
Curses came from the direction of the shattered window, and an icy breeze wafted through the dwelling to bathe Kaori in goose bumps. She was about to make a run for it when she spotted Matt’s phone sitting three feet away from where hers had been.
“Kaori, get down!” Matt bellowed, emerging into the living room wielding a folded umbrella that he apparen
tly planned on using like a club.
Kaori obeyed, hunching down behind the island of cabinets dividing the kitchen from the living room. She dialed the three numbers and waited.
“This is 911. What is your emergency?”
“There’s a break-in at 2776 Sandpiper Lane,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Someone just smashed a window and is coming inside.”
A gunshot drowned out the operator’s next question. Ears ringing, Kaori set the phone on the tile floor without ending the call and scuttled on all fours to peer around the edge of the cabinets. Two large men in ski masks had entered the room, and plaster dust drifted down from the ceiling from where one of them had shot it, apparently to get Matt’s attention—as if they hadn’t gotten it already.
She thanked the heavens they hadn’t shot Matt.
Matt stood calmly in front of them holding the umbrella at his side. “May I help you gentlemen?” he asked.
“Where is she?” the thinner of the two asked. His voice made Kaori’s skin crawl. She knew that voice and had hoped to never hear it again.
Matt did a poor job of feigning ignorance. “Where is who?”
The heavier man pointed his weapon at Matt’s head. “You have ten seconds to start talking.”
Baba’s apparition stood beside them and addressed Kaori once more. “See? This is what happens when you leave home like you did. At least with him dead you won’t have an excuse to stay away from your family anymore. Your parents are going to be so pleased to see you.”
Kaori wished the apparition would just go away, but she’d put up with its constant shaming for four years now and didn’t expect it to vanish anytime soon. Knowing she needed to find a way to protect herself should harm befall Matt, she patted around blindly on the top of the counter to find the knife block.
A knife in a gunfight was laughable.
She had no other options.
“There she is!” the thinner man shouted three seconds after she started searching for the knife block. A bullet whizzed past her head and splintered a cabinet door. Kaori leapt up, snatched up a plate sitting in the dish strainer, and threw it at her assailant like a Frisbee. It struck at the precise angle needed to knock the gun out of his hand, then shattered on the floor beside the dropped weapon. Kaori dove for the gun, snatched it up, and trained it upon the man, chest hitching.
Meanwhile Matt swung the umbrella at the other man’s head. Somehow the man had dropped his own gun, and Kaori suspected Matt had knocked it from his grip with his makeshift bludgeon.
The man whose gun she had taken put his hands up—not such an intimidating assailant now, was he? “What do you want with me?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“You hurt my daughter.”
Kaori spat a strand of hair out of her mouth. “Your daughter was hurting already when I met her. I made her better.”
“You lie!”
“No offense, but I hold myself to higher standards than that.”
The man’s lip curled. If she remembered right, his name was Gerald. “She hasn’t been the same since you worked your voodoo on her,” Gerald said.
Kaori resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “I know. That was the point.”
“Do you know how much money her mother and I made from her fortune-telling? And now it’s gone!”
Kaori let out a testy sigh as the fight between Gerald’s accomplice and Matt continued in the next room. She felt much calmer now that she knew for certain that she wasn’t dealing with trained assassins. If that had been the case, she and Matt would most likely be bloody corpses already. “Your daughter was being controlled by a demon,” she said. “I made the demon go away. If you have a problem with that, you should seriously start reevaluating your priorities.”
Gerald lunged at her. Kaori sent a high kick to his head, and he stumbled backward, swearing.
The sound of sirens rose in the distance.
“Oh, listen!” Kaori said, maintaining her grip on the gun. “It sounds like the cavalry’s about to arrive.”
Gerald glanced away from her long enough for her to slam the butt of the gun down atop his head. He slumped to the floor, not unconscious, but stunned.
“Kaori, grab your things,” Matt said as he stood over the motionless body of the accomplice, still gripping the umbrella. “The police can handle these two without us.”
“Ugh.” Kaori knew Matt liked to avoid direct interaction with law enforcement as much as possible because they tended to ask too many questions about what the pair of them did for a living, though that hadn’t ever stopped either of them from phoning the authorities in the first place. Still, it screamed of guilt for them to run off like this, leaving the injured gunmen here.
Kaori pocketed Matt’s phone, stepped past Gerald, and ran into her room, tossing her clothes and knitting needles into her suitcase. Some of her things would have to be left behind—there wouldn’t be enough time to get everything before the police arrived at the scene.
Cold air bit Kaori’s face as she dashed outside to their gray Ford. It didn’t look like the vehicle had been sabotaged in any way, another sign that Gerald and his buddy weren’t the brightest of crooks.
She fished her keys out of her purse and jumped into the driver’s seat, throwing her suitcase into the back as Matt scrambled into the car with his umbrella and a suitcase of his own. She jammed the gas pedal into the floor the moment the engine turned over, and they squealed like a bottle rocket up Sandpiper Lane.
She spotted what must have been Gerald’s car parked along the shoulder half a mile away, and the moment she turned onto Route 1, a cavalcade of law enforcement vehicles made the turn onto Sandpiper.
Hopefully they’ll think we’re the caretaker heading out for a midnight snack, Kaori thought, not quite relishing the idea of one of the cops stopping them.
Just to be safe, she maintained a respectable speed on the highway until Sandpiper Lane was well out of sight.
Then she took the car up to seventy-five, grateful for the lack of traffic.
“I think that went quite well,” Kaori said.
To her surprise, Matt let out a snicker that turned into a fully-fledged laugh attack, and then Kaori was laughing too, so hard that tears ran down her cheeks.
“You did say you wanted some action,” Matt said when he’d regained the ability to breathe.
“Ask and ye shall receive.”
“Eli is going to have us skinned alive.”
Kaori shrugged. “He’ll probably just send us an invoice for repairs. So where to?”
Matt settled back to get more comfortable. “You’re the boss. It’s up to you.”
IT WAS eleven in the morning by the time Bobby found it within himself to get out of bed.
Images of last night flashed through his mind as he sat up, rubbing his eyes.
“In the name of God the Father, I command you to state your name!”
Bradley writhed beneath the firm grips of Frankie and Father Preston, who had arrived at the church to help. “Our name is Mortem!”
After Mortem revealed its name, Bradley had gone off with Father Preston to spend the night in the spare room at the priest’s house. With luck, Bradley would be fully cleansed within the next day or two.
Bobby had given Bradley his phone number, urging him to call at any time if needed. So far his phone had remained silent.
Bobby shivered at the memory of the voice that had issued from Bradley’s lips, human and inhuman at the same time. Would he ever get used to such a thing? And if Bradley did call, would it be he or Mortem who spoke?
He went out to the kitchen to get coffee and breakfast started and froze in the archway connecting the kitchen to the living room.
Thane sat at the card table in the kitchen, looking bored.
“I wondered when you were going to get up,” Thane said.
Bobby tensed, feeling all his hopes that Thane had finally opted to leave him alone melting away like an abandoned ice cream cone. “What
do you want?” Bobby asked.
Thane made a show of looking sorrowful. In reality, Thane wasn’t here at all, but in his room at Arbor Villa Nursing Home. He’d been paralyzed in a car accident when Bobby was a baby and used his supernatural ability to alter people’s perceptions so they saw and heard things that weren’t there.
That ability had caused former Servant Graham Willard to attempt the murder of Randy Bellison, Bobby’s predecessor.
“And here I thought you might have missed me,” Thane said. “Just shows what I know.”
Bobby folded his arms. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, not now that I know your limitations.”
“You should be very afraid.” Thane’s lips twisted into a sneer, and his eyes shone with malice. Bobby wondered if the actual Thane currently wore a similar expression, or if it was all part of the projection.
When Thane didn’t elaborate, Bobby said, “Why?”
“Because I know something you don’t.”
Bobby shuddered. Those were the same words left on a note by Jack Willard, who had been stalking Bobby’s mother and had her kidnapped off the sidewalk before Bobby realized her true identity.
Of course Thane would know all about that. All he’d have to do was look into Bobby’s mind and read it like the horror story it was.
“What don’t I know?” Bobby asked.
“That would be telling.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“Of course you don’t. You want to go Christmas shopping, of all things, which seems strange to me since you currently have a demoniac waiting for you at the priest’s house. You certainly have strange priorities.” Thane’s expression turned calculating. “And he’s right. I am going to kill you. You can either come to me and make it easy, or I can come after you and make life hell for you and everyone else, including one Carly Jovingo.”
Stay calm, the Spirit warned Bobby.
“You’re just blowing a lot of hot air,” Bobby said. “I’ve seen you. You can’t kill me. You can’t even move. If you could, I’d already be dead.”
“I can make other people do my work for me.”
