Sacred Heart Orphanage (The Haunted Book 5)

by Patrick Logan

  The Cloak.

  The window shattered, and the hood was peppered with tiny cubes that bounced off of it like hail. The sound of the wind was suddenly deafening, and Sean rocked back to his original position. Dazed, he tried to move again, but before he could manage, something crashed down on the top of his head.

  Only this time, it was hard enough to make an audible crack.

  The last thought that passed through Sean’s mind before he lost consciousness was that he hoped Aiden didn’t touch him. That he wasn’t well on his way to the Marrow to meet the man he had sent there more than three decades ago.

  ***

  Lights. Halos. Stinging sweat in his eyes.

  Sean blinked and rolled his head to one side, sending a splinter of pain from the crown of his head down to his ankles. He groaned, long and low, and then blacked out again.

  ***

  Sean kept his eyes closed this time, and clucked his tongue. His mouth was so dry that he couldn’t swallow. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue was like Velcro.

  “Water,” he croaked. “Water.”

  A hand grabbed his chin and tilted it backward, sending a dull throb spiraling inside his skull. Water poured into his mouth, but it was so unexpected that he gagged and tried to tilt his head forward and spit it out. The hand on his chin, however, held firm and he gagged some more.

  Eventually he was given a break to breathe, and he swallowed. More water came, a more reasonable amount now, and he gulped it down greedily.

  With a sigh, Sean finally opened his eyes, blinking against the harsh light while at the same trying to survey his surroundings.

  To plan an escape.

  He was in some sort of gray room made of cement walls, maybe, or brick, with a single lone bulb hanging from the center of the room. His right shoulder ached from where he had smashed it against the door and window, and when he tried to move his arms, he realized that they were bound behind him now, and looped through the back of a metal chair.

  They weren’t taking any chances this time.

  Aiden was standing by the door, leaning against the wall. When their eyes met, he spat a thin gray stream of tobacco juice onto the floor.

  A dizzy spell hit him then, and Sean shut his eyes.

  “We need to find Carson,” Robert demanded. Sean slowly opened his eyes again and stared at the man, marveling at how different he was now compared to when they had met all those months ago.

  Back then, Robert had been meek, obedient, shy and tentative. He had been untrusting, and reluctant to take the letter, let alone move into the Estate. It had been all about Amy back then, even though Sean had known that the girl was dead even before she pissed herself. What he didn’t know, however, was how important a role the dead nine-year-old would play in the events to come.

  But now, Robert had hardened, inside and out. His face was bruised, and the top of his ear was crusted with blood. One of his feet was pointed oddly to one side and his right hand was covered in gauze that had turned a deep brown.

  Back then it might have been about Amy, but not anymore. Despite what he might say, it was about him now.

  It was about Robert, and only Robert.

  A chill suddenly traveled up and down Sean’s spine as Robert Watts stepped forward and moved to within inches of his face.

  “We need to find Carson, and you’re going to fucking help us.”

  Chapter 20

  Carson’s breathing was slow, rhythmic, and this was what he focused on first. He imagined his lungs inflating, the air filling him like some sort of organic balloon, before being ushered back out again. As usual, thoughts started to enter his head: memories mixed with fantasy, of killing his stepfather, of his first kill in the woods that day with Buddy. In his mind, the people he killed were real monsters, the green, scaly kind with massive necks and throats, capable of devouring people whole.

  “If a thought appears,” Bella said in a monotone voice, “don’t fight it. Instead, focus on it. Try to find where it is in your brain. Try to capture it with only your mind.”

  Carson did just that, and he found that chasing thoughts around in his neurons caused them to vanish.

  They weren’t real, after all; thoughts weren’t real, tangible things. They appeared out of nothing, and disappeared into the void.

  He took another deep breath. Then another. With every successive breath, a deeper, more complete darkness started to close in on him and the scattered thoughts became less and less frequent.

  “Breathe deeper, Carson. Deeper…let the air fill not just your lungs, but your entire being.”

  Carson inhaled through his nose until it felt like his chest was the circumference of the Earth.

  “Just when you think your lungs are full, inhale some more.”

  He was beginning to feel lightheaded and his entire body seemed to be hyper-oxygenated; his fingers were tingling, his toes numb.

  “And deeper,” Bella whispered in his ear.

  His mind began to separate from his body, to become disembodied, as if he had injected a massive dose of ketamine and was slipping into the K-hole.

  Only this was different.

  Carson was still present, but not like he had been before; only his essence remained, his quiddity. Everything else had melted away.

  His id, ego, and super-ego were all wrapped into one tight package, folded upon itself like DNA in a nucleosome.

  Deeper he went, no longer hearing Bella, or feeling his own body.

  A period of time elapsed, but he had no concept of how long. It could have been a minute, an hour, a day.

  And then even a basic, rudimentary understanding of time disappeared.

  Only Carson Black’s id remained.

  And then out of nothing came the Sea.

  ***

  The sand was soft and warm on his feet.

  “Leland? You here?”

  It was so peaceful that Carson didn’t want to move, let alone walk. The only thing he wanted to do was to stand and bask in the sun.

  “Leland?”

  He blinked slowly, and each time his lids separated, instead of becoming clear, his vision blurred, as if he were lowering his head into the water.

  On the fifth or sixth such blink, the blurriness vanished, and Carson focused on a man in a black hat. Shadows covered his face, and his worn jean jacket was covered in a thin layer of sand.

  “Carson…it’s great to see you, my son.”

  And then he started to laugh, a grating sound that even made Carson cringe.

  “Father, I need your help again.”

  The sky suddenly erupted into flames, and the soft, casual glow of the sun became a nearly unbearable inferno.

  Sweat immediately broke out on Carson’s brow.

  Carson bowed his head, but the roaring flames drew Carson’s eyes upward. In the roiling fire, he saw James Harlop’s face, Andrew Shaw’s, and finally, Jonah’s.

  The sight of the last man made his blood boil nearly as hot as the sky above.

  “Robert’s strong, too strong…he took control of one of the dead.”

  At the mention of his other son’s name, Leland’s head tilted upward slightly. Beneath the brim, Carson caught sight of his chin, but it wasn’t scarred and sunburnt as he had imagined it might be. Instead, it was soft and smooth. When the head tilted a little more, he caught sight of a plump lower lip, red and full.

  What the hell?

  But then Leland lowered his head again, and the fleeting image was gone.

  “Robert took control?”

  “Yes. I need you to…to teach me how to do the same.”

  There was a pause, and Carson wiped sweat from his brow. He tried to move his feet, but they were glued to the tarry ground. He didn’t panic. In fact, a small smile crossed his face. This was where he belonged, and where he would return one day with Leland in body and soul.

  To rule like the prophecy foreshadowed.

  “Carson, I can teach you, but what Robert did…it’s not
without risks, consequences. If you go too far…”

  Carson raised an eyebrow toward his father’s apprehension; this trepidation wasn’t like him. On the few previous occasions he had gone deep enough to transport his mind to the Marrow, the man had been unrelenting in his need to generate a rift. His desire had been all-encompassing.

  Carson’s eyes drifted upward and he stared at the faces molded in fire.

  Everyone else before me has failed.

  “I won’t let you down, Father. I will open the rift.”

  Leland didn’t reply right away, leaving Carson to listen to the roaring fire above and the churning sea behind him.

  “The longer you stay here, the more likely they are to feel it,” Leland said at last. “And the longer we wait to open the rift, the more likely it is that he will foil our plans.”

  Carson nodded; there was no need to clarify who the ‘he’ his father spoke of was.

  Sean Sommers.

  Leland’s black hat lowered, and when he spoke again, his voice had dropped several octaves.

  “Leave Sean to me.”

  Carson swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Where is Robert now?”

  “He’s…he has left the Harlop Estate, heading east. But there is something else…someone else with him, in him. Blocking me. I can’t…I can’t pinpoint him.”

  Leland extended his right hand, and for a split second what Carson saw was no longer a human hand. In its place was dark and leathery, extending in three long, pointed talons.

  “Someone is blocking me,” Leland repeated, and he made a fist, his hand returning to its typical human form.

  Carson’s mind flicked to the scene of the woman grabbing the fucking kid with the glasses back at the Harlop Estate, and the way she had been drawn to Robert shortly before Carson had lost control of her.

  And Robert had taken over.

  He gritted his teeth. It was that woman’s quiddity that was blocking Leland, he was sure of it.

  Somehow Robert had implanted her in his head.

  “I won’t fail you, Father. Now tell me how to control the dead…tell me how I can free you and all of our brothers and sisters from this place.”

  Chapter 21

  “You guys think you know something? You think you know what’s at stake here?” Sean hissed. “You don’t know anything. I should have killed you when I had the chance. If I’d known that you would get this fucked up, Robert, that you would go looking for the very man that wants to use you to destroy the world, I would have shot you dead on your doorstep that first time we met.”

  Robert had his back turned when he spoke to him, but mentioning that first encounter must have struck a chord with him, because he whipped around. In a second, he was on Sean, his hands digging in deep into his thighs as he leaned in close.

  “Well you didn’t, did you?”

  Sean tried to look away, but Robert grabbed his face, pinching his cheeks hard. He stared him directly in the eyes.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No,” Sean managed, and then shook his face away.

  “No, no you didn’t. Now you’re going to help us find Carson, or Aiden here is going to give you a nice, big fat hug. How ‘bout that?”

  Sean glanced to Aiden, but the man didn’t react outside of providing what was quickly becoming his patented response: spitting on the floor. Sean took a deep breath.

  “He can’t be here, Robert. You know this. The longer he stays, the—”

  “I don’t give a shit!” Robert suddenly screamed, and Sean recoiled.

  The man had changed, that was for sure, but this was insane. It was a completely different person standing in front of him.

  What the hell happened to him?

  He had been pissed when they had all left Seaforth, but he hadn’t been like this.

  What the fuck happened to him?

  Cal, who had been watching off to one side with his arms crossed over his chest up to this point, suddenly stepped forward and reached for Robert’s arm.

  Robert shrugged him off.

  “Where’s Carson, Sean? Are you going to tell me where the fuck he is?”

  Sean shrugged as best he could given his restraints.

  “How the fuck should I know? I thought he was fucking dead! You said he was dead! You said you shot him in Seaforth, remember? Goddammit, Robert, I fucking wish we had left you on that island. Every minute—every second that you’re still alive is a second closer Leland is to opening the rift.”

  “Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have fucking killed him, then, did you ever think about that?”

  Sean grimaced.

  “You think you know what happened? You think you know anything? Let me tell you something, you fucking punk, if it weren’t for the Cloak, then—” Sean clamped his mouth shut. He had started to ramble; he had let this man, this nobody, get under his skin. And he had said too much.

  Perhaps Robert wasn’t the only one who had changed.

  Robert had started to walk away when Sean began his diatribe, but now he turned back.

  “The Cloak? You mean the man in the hat? You mean Leland?”

  Sean remained tight-lipped.

  “Who are you talking about, Sean?”

  Robert threw his arms up.

  “Aiden, any ideas on how to get this man to talk?”

  Like Sean, Aiden said nothing.

  “Sean, things have changed. We need to get to Carson before he comes for us. Do you understand that? We can’t just sit around anymore while he collects more of his freaks, wrangles more of the dead. In fact, if it weren’t for Aiden over there, we’d be dead already,” Cal said, his voice surprisingly calm.

  “Yeah, and who do you think told him to watch out for you, huh? Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  Something crossed over Robert’s face, and when he spoke next, he had regained some semblance of control.

  “If you won’t find Carson, then tell me where the book is.”

  Sean pressed his lips together even tighter, as if allowing them to open would somehow make him more tempted to actually speak. Robert’s fists clenched and unclenched, and Sean knew that the man was on the verge of lashing out physically.

  That was fine by him. It wouldn’t be the first time he was beaten, and it had been done by bigger and badder men than this fucking accountant standing before him.

  But instead of punching him, Robert turned and walked to the door. He passed Aiden without saying a single word, then left the room.

  It clanged closed behind him, and then the three of them were left in silence. For a long while, no one said anything, but as Sean had predicted, Cal couldn’t keep his mouth shut forever.

  “Fuck, Sean, just help us find Carson. Trust me, we know the stakes. Please.”

  Sean eyed the man.

  “Why the change of heart all of a sudden? Two weeks ago, you guys wanted to put this shit behind you. Now what? Got an itch?”

  Cal sighed and rolled his shoulders.

  “For the record, I was always in. But now…things are different, ever since Shelly—”

  And then it was Cal’s turn to clam up.

  It was only then that Sean realized that the kid in the glasses and Shelly were missing from this whole scene.

  This whole gang of ghostbusting delinquents.

  “What? They gave up? Shelly and the boy?”

  Cal’s face hardened.

  “No. The boy is gone. Fucking asshole Carson sicked the dead on him, sent him to the Marrow.”

  Sean said nothing. The boy had known the risks; he himself had explained them to him before transporting Allan to Seaforth.

  Still, another dead meant another notch in Leland’s belt, another potential soldier for him to use in the great war that was to come.

  As for Shelly…

  “What happened to Shelly?”

  Cal looked away, and in that instant Sean knew that something had happened to her. She hadn’t been sent to the Marrow, that much was certain, but
something else had happened. Something that had sent Robert into a tailspin. Sean racked his brain, recalling how the two had interacted when he was in their presence. They had been close, were close; he knew as much based on how Robert had protected Shelly both in the helicopter and at Seaforth.

  Had she left him? Was that it?

  He posed the question to Cal, who suddenly became angry, similar to how Robert had acted only moments ago.

  “Tell us where he is, Sean! Tell us where the fuck Carson is hiding out! We know that you can reach out to him. Now just tell us where he is!”

  Sean observed the man carefully. Cal’s hands were twitching at his sides, but not aggressively, like Robert’s had. This was different.

  Frustration, maybe? Or jealousy? Why is Robert so mad? He was only this upset when he found out about Amy, when—

  Sean sat bolt upright and pulled hard against his restraints.

  “She’s pregnant, isn’t she? For fuck’s sake, tell me Shelly isn’t pregnant!” The ropes dug in deep to his wrists, but this only made him pull harder. “Tell me he wasn’t that stupid!”

  When Cal looked away briefly, Sean knew that his words rang true.

  And then another revelation came to him, the thing that had bothered him about what the Cloak had said, when he had read the prophecy.

  Only the quiddity of a child, of a powerful child born of two Guardians, will be able to hold it open and allow souls to pass into the world of the living.

  Two Guardians.

  Two fucking Guardians, not one.

  Sean’s vision suddenly went red.

  It wasn’t Amy that Leland intended to use to hold the rift open, but this unborn child. Shelly and Robert’s child, the child of two Guardians.

  “Where’s Shelly now?” he asked, his heart racing so hard in his chest that he could barely get the words out.

  Cal froze, but didn’t turn.

  Sean pulled against the ropes so hard that the wooden chair creaked. Then he jumped forward, all four chair legs coming a full inch off the ground. Aiden finally took notice and stepped away from the wall.