“Where is Tadin?”
Aleister didn’t reply. He cocked his head like a cat with an ignorant expression on his face.
“I’m only asking one more time,” Maris squeezed his fists.
“Oh, I’m scared!” Aleister mocked. “What are you going to do? Bludgeon me some more? Please. There’s nothing you can do to me that will even remotely affect my being. I’m a demon. Don’t bother writing any of this down, Maris. Your time is not long for this world. Not in those bodies, at least, if you’re going up against Haures.”
Shelley felt distraught. They weren’t getting anywhere with Aleister!
But, then he said something that caught her attention.
“You’ll be part of the collection soon.”
That was it.
“You're right,” she said, and Aleister looked up. “You have a boss. You probably get a bonus if you do your job well, right? Maybe the guys in charge will lessen your sentence for failing to take us down on your own?”
Aleister grinned.
“No wonder Tadin liked you so much. You’re witty. I’d enjoy having you to talk to for eternity.”
“I bet you would,” she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Why don’t you help me help you, huh? I mean, my time is short. If I’m going to die, it might as well be quick. I hate dragging things out. Seeing as you can’t take me there yourself, you could tell me where your boss is staying, and I can go there. It beats waiting in my apartment for another one of you to come knocking.”
Aleister considered this.
“Alright,” he said. “Either way, you’re not going to survive. Haures is staying in the apartment above Achaia. Do you know it?”
“Achaia?” Shelley said. “You mean the pub Achaia?”
“That’s the one. He lives on the top two floors of the building.”
Shelley nodded. She could do this. All she had to do was get to that apartment and find Tadin.
“What about Tadin?” she asked. “How can I find him?”
“For what? A reunion?” Aleister sniggered. “He’s in a jar. Haures keeps his collection in a secret room. If you find the library, you’ll find your lover — even if it’s only for a few minutes. I’ll give you a hint: It’s on the first floor. Maybe you can share a heart-to-heart before Haures rips your soul from your body.”
He laughed and Shelley turned to Maris.
“I’m going to get him,” she said and took off running for the street.
“Hey —” Maris called as he fumbled for the camera in his pocket. “Wait! You can't just run in there by yourself!”
But she was already gone.
Maris turned to Aleister, still plastered to the roadway. He wanted to snap a few pictures, but, the camera was so waterlogged that it barely made it through one snapshot before it died in a fit of buzzing.
“Wha —? Come on!” he smacked the camera against his palm, trying to rid it of as much water as possible, but no luck. Old Reliable was dead in the water.
Aleister laughed, which sounded incredibly painful. His broken body heaved. With one last grin he dissolved into dust and sank into the grooves of the pavement.
Chapter Twenty-Three:
Monday - 6:00pm
Shelley’s thighs burned as she climbed the stairs to Haures’s apartment. She raced through the entrance hall and made a beeline to the hallway at the back. She was determined to search every nook and cranny for Tadin.
Please hold on, Tadin, she thought with gritted teeth. If Aleister was telling the truth, the library would be down this hallway...
To her surprise one of the doorways was wide open. Inside was a spacious library covered wall-to-wall with books. One of the bookcases was pulled out towards the middle of the room as if it was on hinges. Shelley peered around the bookcase and nearly bolted from the room when she saw what lay within the hidden chamber.
Hundreds of glass figurines stared back at her. Their eyes were expressionless. A single light hung from the ceiling and glinting off the figurines, casting prisms on the walls.
Her heart was pounding. She inhaled deeply, held it until her heart rate settled, then closed her eyes and tried to coach herself onwards.
“You can do this,” she said. “It’s just a few steps. Tadin’s right there...and he needs you...”
She opened her eyes and committed herself.
As she stepped into the room she noticed that the figurines were flickering with tiny, moving shadows. A few of them waved frantically as she passed by.
“Those must be the souls...” she muttered.
Each figurine had a metallic nameplate on the base with the soul’s name and date of death etched precisely. They were in alphabetical order by last name. Who knew demons were so organized?
There were lots of names beginning with M, but thankfully no Macyntires that she could see. When she got to the H section she found Tadin’s figurine, which was an unmistakable likeness of him. She didn’t need to read the baseplate.
“Tadin!” she said and picked up the statuette. “Tadin, can you hear me? It’s Shelley!”
The shadow inside the figurine pressed against the glass. She needed to get him out — and fast.
A silver stopper was wedged in the bottom of the figure. She couldn’t get a grip on it. It was like those obnoxious piggy banks she had as a child. She needed something to pry it open, but there was no time. She would worry about that when they were out of here.
“Tell me you’re not trying to walk out of here with that?” a voice said behind her. She jumped and spun around to see Haures standing in the doorway, his hand raised to show Tadin’s engagement ring between his fingers. “You’ll need this to get past the door.”
“How did you get that?” she asked, her legs trembling. A gut-wrenching energy poured from the man. Her knees nearly buckled.
“It was easy,” said Haures. “I took it from your apartment along with your ghost boyfriend. Don’t recognize me? I know it’s been a few days, but still, I hoped you’d remember your first customer.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re the man who bought Tadin’s portrait.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say man,” Haures shook his head. “More like a demon with a body. I believe you have something that belongs to me.” He motioned to the figurine.
“Tadin doesn’t belong to you!” she said, tightening her grip.
“He absolutely one-hundred-per-cent belongs to me,” he scowled and stepped into the tiny room. “The minute I put his renegade soul into that container he became part of my collection. An irreplaceable part of my collection. You will put him back right now.”
“Or what?” Shelley challenged. “You’ll stuff me into a jar too?”
Haures snatched her by the throat before she could react. His fingers closed around her windpipe, strong and unforgiving. A metallic taste rose up in the back of her throat as she gasped.
“Maybe I will,” he said. “Who knows what I’ll do with you?”
He lifted her off her feet. She wrapped her hands around his arm and flailed around, searching for a foothold, but there was nothing but air. Tiny stars of light burst in her eyes.
“It would be too easy to pop your head off right now and take out that pretty soul,” said Haures. “But, I’ll let you suffer a little first. What do you think?”
She was close to blacking out. If she passed out, who knew what would happen to her, or if she’d ever wake up?
She dug her nails into Haures’s arm, but it did nothing.
What could she do?
Then it dawned on her. Dangling from her neck was the gold crucifix Tadin gave her. Maybe that would do something?
She snapped the chain and gripped the cross like a needle. Before Haures knew what was happening, she rammed the cross into one of his eyes.
A howl ripped from his chest and he let her fall to the floor. She knocked her elbow on the wooden flooring and what was left of her breath was knocked out of her lungs. She gasped. The air tasted s
weet. Her throat burned with every gasp.
Haures wiped at his eye and threw the crucifix at the wall.
That was her chance.
She had to grab Tadin!
She got to her feet and made a grab for the figurine, but Haures whirled around and swiped at her. Tadin’s figurine was knocked from the shelf and toppled to the floor.
“You’re going to pay for that!” Haures hollered.
She ran for the library doorway, grabbing the crucifix from the floor as she went.
Tadin would have to help himself. Right now Shelley had to get as far away as possible. She clasped the chain around her neck and booked it for the entrance hall.
To her shock, another man wearing spiral ear gauges and plain clothes was blocking her way out.
“Going somewhere?” he said.
Shelley heard Haures close behind. Without looking back, she sprinted for the spiral stairs and took them two at a time.
Her lungs were on fire. Every breath was labored, struggling to keep from passing out. She needed water, but there was no time. She needed to hide. Tadin was trapped down there and she couldn’t leave him. But, she was useless to him if she was dead.
A long hallway stretched ahead. She didn’t know which door to try, so she ran to the end and threw open the last one. There had to be somewhere to hide in here.
Shutting the door, she quickly took in her surroundings.
It was a bedroom. A large king sized bed sat against the wall with blood red canopy. There was a wardrobe — the obvious hiding spot — and a few useless pieces of furniture such as a dresser and a desk with a mirror.
Her pulse raced and her legs felt like giving way. This room was useless!
She clenched her fist around Tadin’s engagement ring. She thought in the back of her mind that as long as she had the ring she would find a way out.
Suddenly she heard something like fabric rubbing against itself. She looked and saw the giant curtains at the far side of the room rustling in a breeze.
Of course! The window!
It was her only chance. She had only moments before Haures would burst in.
She hurried to the curtains and yanked them open.
“No!” she cried as she found that there was nothing to climb down on. It was another dead end.
The demon’s footsteps pummeled down the hallway. Within seconds she would be caught.
She leaned over the edge of the window and saw a tiny ledge beyond. The small stone platform ran the length of the building and stopped at a rusty fire escape.
The doorknob jiggled behind her. It was now or never.
She tucked Tadin’s ring in her pocket, took a deep breath, and stepped onto the ledge.
Chapter Twenty-Four:
Monday - 6:15pm
The figurine seemed to fall forever. Tadin braced himself against the walls as it tumbled. If he had a stomach, he would have hurled. The smoky glass masked everything in a haze. The dark color of the floor rushed up to embrace him.
He closed his eyes before the walls shattered to pieces around him. They fell in a messy circle like an impact crater. It feels like being in a plane crash, Tadin thought. It wasn’t fun, but he was free now.
He had to find Shelley, and fast.
A bout of vertigo came over him as he returned to his normal size, and he leaned against a shelving unit.
“I’m not doing that ever again,” he held his forehead in his hand.
After a moment he turned to hurry out of the library, but someone came sprinting in and passed right through him.
They both cried out. Tadin raised his hands to fight, but let out a frustrated sigh of relief when he saw a familiar face.
“Maris!”
His friend looked battered and damp. A long cut ran from his temple to his cheek and the blood was already clotting.
“Oh good,” Maris ran his hands through his hair. “Just the man I was looking for.”
“What are you doing here?” Tadin asked. “Have you been swimming?”
“I might have taken a quick dip, yeah.”
Tadin shook his head in disbelief.
“We need to find Shelley,” he led the way out to the hall.
“Well, I found her a while ago, but she insisted on rescuing you. Not a bad idea, since you’re a nice guy to have around, but not exactly smart when you’re going up against demons.”
“Haures hasn’t gotten her yet?”
They were almost back to the entrance hall. Tadin stopped at the doorway.
“I don’t know, exactly,” Maris stopped beside him. “She got ahead of me, and I sort of lost her.”
Suddenly something rustled in the room ahead.
Tadin brought up a finger to his mouth and motioned to the noise with his eyes. Maris nodded.
They came around the corner as quietly as possible, and found a man standing at Haures’s desk. The man rummaged through drawers. Papers and books littered the floor and desktop.
Maris mouthed the words, “Who is that?”
Tadin hadn’t a clue. It must be one of Haures’s cronies, and from the looks of it, the guy was cleaning out the place.
He must be making a run for it.
Tadin wasn’t letting that happen.
Maris tried to stop him, but he walked into the room and accosted the man.
“Hey,” he said. The man looked up from his rifling and Tadin realized that he’d seen him before. But, where?
“Smooth,” Maris muttered.
“Of course,” the man threw a stack of papers onto the desk. They exploded in a cloud of floating pages. “I knew it wasn’t going to be a piece of cake.”
“Where’s Haures?” Tadin stopped a few feet away.
“Somewhere in the building, I imagine,” the man looked through another drawer. “I’m not keeping tabs on him at the moment...”
“You’re going to take us to him,” Tadin clenched his fists. “Right now.”
The man looked taken aback.
“No,” the man replied. “I’m not doing anything. You want to go on your little adventure, or whatever — be my guest. I have bigger fish to fry. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t know who you are —” Tadin pressed on, but he was cut off.
“That’s obvious,” the demon laughed. “I’m Pyro, the most useless person here. You’re wasting your time just speaking to me. Ah, here we are...”
He retrieved a shiny silver key from the drawer and tucked it in his pocket. He also picked up a briefcase at his feet.
“Put that down,” Tadin demanded.
“Or what? Or you’ll punch me with your little ghost fists? Get out of my way.”
Tadin stepped in front of the punk, but suddenly was yanked off his feet by an invisible force. He slid across the floor towards the wall.
He cried out, reaching for anything, but it was useless.
“What’s happening?” Maris asked, but Tadin was halfway through the wall. Only his torso was sticking out.
“My ring!” he said. “Haures must have it — he’s pulling me away!”
He slipped through the wall even more. Only his shoulders and head were left.
“Don’t let Pyro get away with the briefcase!” he said, then disappeared completely through the wall, being dragged to wherever Haures was waiting.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Monday - 6:25pm
Pyro watched Tadin slip helplessly through the wall. There goes one roadblock, he thought. Only one more to go.
“What’s your name?” Pyro asked the cowering man in the doorway.
“Maris,” the man straightened up.
Judging by the look on Maris’s face, he would be easy to pick off. After all, he was just a human.
Pyro looked Maris in the eye with a grin.
“You won’t give me any trouble, will you?” he asked. Just a few strides to the door and he’d be free. He glanced at the briefcase and felt the weight of it. This should be enough, he thought. This will start me off
right, the way it should have been years ago.
As if on cue, Maris picked up a cane from the bins by the stairs and lifted it like a bat.
“Whatever’s in that briefcase,” he said, “you better put it down right now. You’re not leaving here with anything.”
What a fool, Pyro thought. He thinks there’s souls in this briefcase. I have no use for souls. Not any more. I’m done with that job.
“What are you going to do? Hit me with a cane? I’m a demon, you stupid human.”
“You have a body just like me,” Maris adjusted his grip on the cane. “Physical and fragile. All I have to do is bludgeon you and you’ll be back down in Hell where you belong.”
He rapped the cane against the floor.
“Don’t believe me?” Maris continued. “I just sent your buddy Aleister home. He was pretty messed up. I ran him over with my car. I’ll do the same to you if you don’t put down that briefcase right now.”
He’s bluffing, Pyro thought, even as beads of sweat formed on his face. They ran down his chin and dropped to the floor.
What if Maris wasn’t bluffing? Pyro hadn’t seen Aleister since earlier. He could be plastered to the roadway somewhere.
He swallowed.
“If you think I’m giving up this briefcase because you’ll beat me, you’re mistaken. I’ve worked months for this payload, and I’ll be damned if a stupid human —”
Maris charged and swung the cane at his head. Pyro ducked and the cane struck him in the shoulder.
He stumbled backwards, waving his arms to stabilize himself.
The demon felt like a normal person! He didn’t seem stronger than anyone else Maris had ever fought.
Pyro darted for the door, the briefcase swinging with every stride.
Maris lunged into a sprint and swiped at the briefcase. The demon barely made it through the doorway when, through sheer luck, Maris caught the edge of the briefcase.
He yanked backwards. Pyro was just taking the first few steps down to the ground floor, but instead stumbled down them, tethered to the briefcase.
This might be my only chance, Maris pulled on the briefcase. But, Pyro had a vice-like grip.
Macyntire & Hough (A Paranormal Romance) (The Macyntire & Hough Saga) Page 14
