Dark Winter (24 page)

“You don’t think so?”

“I…I don’t know anymore. It’s for the best if I don’t focus on that.”

“I hardly think that’s a basis for the accusation, Toril. Aren’t you always going on about a process of reasonable deduction leading to the only conclusion?”

Toril was surprised. Jacinta was using more words today than she normally used in a month. Syllable overload.

“He’s Diabhal, the Devil, the Axe Man, you know.” Toril almost sounded the words pleadingly to Jacinta, as if she was trying to convince herself. “That’s what they say.”

“He’s weird.” Toril tried to reaffirm what she really thought of Curie.

“I’ve been told
I’m
weird,” said Jacinta. “As for what
they
say, I’m not fussed about that! Ooh, look at the girl with white hair! Let’s make fun of her! Honestly Toril, you should be careful about what you say about people.”

Toril bristled.

“So you don’t think it was weird that those rats followed him from the school to the grounds of his house? You don’t think it was weird that evidence linked him to the murder of our friend Beth’s parents? You don’t think it’s weird that creature visited us when we played ouijia and on the same night, for Beth to trip over a body bag containing a body right in Curie’s back yard? You don’t think that it’s weird that Curie survived an attack by a demon that Beth summonsed? You really don’t think so?”

Toril hadn’t meant for it to be all blurted out like that, but it was unavoidable. Perhaps it had been boiling up inside her for longer than she thought, and now Jacinta got the brunt of it.

Jacinta looked non-plussed, which annoyed Toril even more.

“Jacinta?”

“Well…maybe. It’s all rather circumstantial though. Nothing was ever proved.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s innocent.”

“It doesn’t mean he’s guilty either,” said Jacinta, matter-of-factly. “I thought you would know that, being the Holmes nerd and everything.”

Jacinta was pushing Toril’s buttons. Toril loved Sherlock Holmes, and rarely did her hero show any signs of getting hot under the cover. Whatever Jacinta or anyone else thought, she believed that Curie was guilty of all of those things. Evidence pointed to it. He had gotten away with it for now, that was all.

Jacinta Crow had a way of winding people up, but with friends, it was possible she didn’t even realise what she was doing.

Toril understood that.
That’s why I’m not going to take the bait. I won’t be some helpless fish, hooked by Jacinta’s worm. I’m going to be cool, like Holmes.

“Jacinta. It’s fine.
You know my methods
. The truth will out, in the end. It always does.”

Quoting Sherlock Holmes was something Toril loved to do, but had so few opportunities. She needed to stay calm, and deal with the situation. Getting annoyed with Jacinta wasn’t the point. Checking on Curie, and hoping that he didn’t have Beth and Romilly and whoever else holed up in that house of hell, was the only thing to see to.

Sherlock Holmes applied a precision-like-a-laser approach to everything he did. Toril was going to have to do the same.

As Toril and Jacinta approached Curie’s house, the wind howled and the trees folded in a arch, the water from the branch leaves wetted the girls as they walked on up the lane.

“I really
hate
rain,” said Toril, frustrated with herself that she was trying to show Jacinta her Holmesesque coolness, and was failing miserably.

“I don’t mind it,” said Jacinta. “It makes everything fresh.”

Toril wanted to reply, but in her head she could only come up with negatives, like how the constant rain depressed her, made her clothes and shoes wet, and would bring darkness to an otherwise bright day.

“Perhaps,” replied Toril unconvincingly.

We stood just a few feet from the gate. It was a wide wooden gate, with a rusted bolt and an even rustier latch to secure it with. Toril thought it would make too much noise.

“Maybe we can jump over,” said Toril. “I’m not sure it will open, or is meant to be opened.”

“You can’t jump in that outfit,” said Jacinta. “You’ll rip your clothes.”

Jacinta was wearing blue jeans and a white scoop necked top with pink flowers on it. She could climb over, no problem.

“So you’ll be okay, but I can’t join you?” said Toril. “Negative. We both go in.”

Fully aware they would be making a lot of noise, Toril slid back the latch on the gate.

It groaned awkwardly, and as Toril pulled at it, the rain came down even harder.

The latch moved, but not enough.

“Damn it!” said Toril. “Bloody thing won’t budge.”

Jacinta stood looking at Toril, with her arms folded, one hand resting under her chin.

“You don’t know any Wiccan spells to open this?”

“No, Jacinta, I don’t. We have to open it the old fashioned way. Help me, will you?”

At that moment, Toril slipped, getting mud all over her clothes. “Oh damn it! I can’t bloody believe this.”

Jacinta helped her up, but it was rather too late.

“I’m a mess. No matter,” said Toril. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Without changing her expression, Jacinta followed Toril inside.

“I can’t see any rats, can you?” said Jacinta.

“Maybe not,” said Toril, “but I bet my Wiccan ass that there’s a huge rat inside.”

“Hope you’ve got something to catch it with then.”

Tugging at her pentacle, Toril turned to Jacinta and said, with the steeliest of determination, said, “You bet I do.”

Toril marched up and turned the door handle down. She was not at all surprised to find it unlocked.

Five Liv
e
s F
or Five S
ouls

Curie had been given orders by Diabhal to get at least three souls. He would be so pleased with him when he learned that he had not only got three souls ready for trading, but that another two were on the way.

Not only that, but one of those he had already trapped, possessed the long lost Mirror of Souls.

Today was a momentous one, to say the least.

He wondered if Toril and Jacinta would have turned around ran home as fast as their legs would carry them, if they knew what was in store for them.

He also knew, of course, that the girls had entered the house.

No matter. He had moved the girls’ bodies out of the side entry, just in case Toril and Jacinta were as stupid as the other two had been.

He wanted to make both myself and Beth look good for our presentation though, and well, now he had less time to do it in. Toril and Jacinta had arrived early.

Still, along with the boy, that was five souls to trade. What a huge day this was going to be.

Being male, and 6’1” in height, Troy Jackson had been the hardest to kidnap, but Curie had done it. Diabhal had a test for Curie and for Troy, but the test was unknown. All he knew, was that it would have to wait until he had wrested the Mirror from me.

Now that my body lay dead, he could claim the Mirror and use it for himself. He just had to keep my soul intact a little while longer.
Cinderfyll
, made from orchid tips and ground cinnamon powder, was all that was needed. He had dumped our’ bodies into a wheelbarrow, then carried them, one by one into the carving room.

He set Beth up first, sitting her into a chair. Then he carried my body and put it in another chair.

He looked at both of us, and decided it wasn’t quite right, and placed Beth’s hands in her lap, then placed my hands over mine.

My neck was weak from Beth’s strangulation, and my head kept flopping forward, bobbed around a little, then stopped moving. When Curie tried to straighten me up again, the same thing happened again.

His eyes brightened when he saw a thin red sash, like a belt, on my torn and bloodied jeans. The blood had soaked into my jeans quite deeply, but somehow, the sash was unspoilt.

He slid the sash out gently, wrapped it around the top of my head, and with great care, pulled back on it, and tied it to the back of the chair.

He clapped his hands together. “Good! Good! Oh yes, this looks just great!”

Looking around the room, which was pretty sparse in furnishings except for the chairs, Curie decided it was time to bring in the boy.

“He’s going to love this,” said Curie to himself. Getting a damp cloth, Curie cleansed the remaining blood from Beth’s face, before working on mine.

We looked almost normal, but the subterfuge wouldn’t last long. Our souls would be departing soon.

Curie pushed his hands down on windows he already knew were locked tight, but he checked them again and again anyway.

Hands on hips, he smiled brightly and looked in our direction.

“Can’t be too careful, eh girls? Got to keep-you-two-safe-and-sound.”

He gestured, pointing at us with his right index finger to further emphasis the words.

“Don’t go away, I’ll be right back,” he laughed.

Beth and I sat, bolt upright, knees placed together, our hands overlapping. We bore a deathly vacant expression on our faces. We were dead. We were going nowhere.

Moments later, not that the passage of time meant anything for us anymore, Curie returned. If our ears had been functioning, you would have heard him panting as he made his way back up into the room. The bodybag snagged angrily on a nail sticking up from the floor where a bit of old carpet had been stuck down.

A moan from the bag was heard elsewhere in the house, but they wouldn’t find him just yet, and when they did, everything would be in place. It couldn’t be avoided. It was meant to happen. It will happen. The trade would be made in the carving room.

*                            *                            *

“There! I told you!” said Toril to Jacinta. “Didn’t you hear it?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Jacinta. “You know I’m deaf in my right ear.”

“What about the other ear?”

“It’s only half as good.”

“Well, I heard it. It’s him, Curie. He’s in the house.”

“Did you really expect anything else? It is his place after all.”

“That’s not what I mean. He’s up to something, and we are going to catch him at it.”

Toril could hear footsteps above and to the right of their position. There was a short hallway followed by a staircase. Toril abandoned being quiet, and galloped up the stairs, with Jacinta close behind.

                                          *                            *                            *

It’s the weirdest feeling, being dead. Of course, you don’t know you are dead for sure, because your body is still clinging to the physical life you have just left behind, and so, it’s all rather uncertain. I had no idea what Beth must be feeling, but if I survived this being dead situation, I’d be sure to kill her.

How could she do this to me? Was she being coerced somehow? I keep seeing her dead ball eyes in my mind. That’s not like Beth. No. Something was very wrong, and now that I was dead, I could not do a single thing about it.

             
                            *                            *                            *

Huffing and puffing, Curie dragged the body bag along the wooden floor, the under zip making a scratching sound as he did so. The bag looked too big to contain a small boy, or a teenage girl, and through the dead eyes that sat in their sockets, I realised who it was.

Troy Jackson.

I knew this because he had been given a ring, a Celtic ring from his father. In one of the few conversations I had started with him, in the hope that he would ask me out, he told me all about the ring.

“Look here, Rom. It’s a Celtic ring. My father gave it to me. See how the design has been lasered on to the black plating? This ring is old, and yet it doesn’t look like it, does it?”

“It certainly doesn’t look old,” I said, my grin turning into a full-blown smile.

Getting a bit lost in his blue eyes, I tried to stay on track.

“So, er…what’s the ring made of?”

“Tungsten,” Troy said proudly. “Heavyweight tungsten. Look at the polish on it. I’m not given in to jewellery, Rom, but this…this is cool. My old man must be proud of me after all.”

I wondered why he would say that. Had he done anything to make his father anything less than proud? I couldn’t imagine so. It was hard to concentrate. I was falling for him, and I couldn’t wait for the week to pass so another music class would happen, and we would be working together again. In the other classes he hung out with other friends. Or he could just ask me out.

I would occasionally get a “Hi Rom!” from him, and nothing else. I couldn’t nor wouldn’t correct him on calling me
Rom,
either. I just wanted him to notice me a bit more. A
lot
more.

If he was now lying dead in the bodybag, maybe we would get to spend a lot more time together after all. His hand lay limply to the side, with the Celtic ring’s shine, dulling in the late afternoon sun.

                                          *                            *                            *

Toril frantically opened each door, cursing each time there was nothing and no-one in there. Jacinta wanted to ask “So is this how you remember Holmes doing it?” but for once, kept her opinions to herself.

She had started to feel very uneasy. There was a stench of something in the air. She pulled at Toril’s clothes.

“What now?” said Toril.

“Can’t you smell that?”

“What?”

“It’s like…it’s like….”

“Rotting flesh, I know.”

Jacinta was taken aback. Toril was smart, no doubt about that, but to perceive her thoughts so accurately – that was frightening.

Another door pulled open. “Just how many rooms are there?” said Toril, frustratingly.

Curie, two floors away, laughed to himself. “More than you think, Toril Withers, and more than you can ever hope to deal with.”

He looked at the axe in the corner of the room. Of course, he had gotten a reputation as The Axe Man, or Diabhal by the kids in school, but what they didn’t know was, that the real Wood Cutter did exist, and was no bogey man – Curie knew him as the Master. To address him as Diabhal bore pain of death to anyone who dared to do so.

Curie realised he had suffered as a result of being a tool of Diabhal, but he would be rewarded handsomely, once he had been able to give Diabhal the Mirror of Souls, unleashing all the zombies and the rest of the evil undead into the world. Imagine that – an entire world burning, with bodies reduced to ash, where their screams would be the only echo.

In an instant, the smile disappeared from his face. When would he be free to make his own choices, and be free of Diabhal?

“I’ll take your pretty little head, Toril Withers. Your so-called Wiccan powers and that pathetic wand of yours, won’t profit you here.”

He turned back to the bodybag, and stared at it intently. Curie wished he was twenty years younger. Subduing a big lad like Troy Jackson wasn’t easy, but he was supposed to be bait for me, and I had turned up early, and so he sent Beth to do his dirty work.

In the haze that I guessed was some kind of afterlife, it was becoming clear to me that Beth hadn’t wished to kill me at all. Poison had filled her mind. Illness, sleep depravity, and the dark words of Diabhal, had turned her into a violent, remorseless, unemotional killer. I could not blame Beth for any of this.

Where was she though? Shouldn’t she be here? We died at the same time, right?

I looked around, and although I was alone, I was still aware of things. I wanted to squeeze her hand, maybe jolt her into life again, but it was not going to happen. My soul was leaving – or perhaps had already left my body. I would never know what it would be like to be in Troy Jackson’s arms, or look in his dreamy blue eyes again.

No. I had to accept it. I was dead, and I was no longer the Mirror’s keeper. It would only be a matter of time before Curie found a way to imprint himself on it. The marks on my arms had already started to fade. My Nan would be so disappointed in me. I had failed her. Failed everyone.

It was all up to Toril and Jacinta now.