Nocturnal (51 page)

Then came the blaring shrill of an alarm.

Bryan walked inside. He didn’t notice his surroundings. He was looking for one thing and one thing only.

Somewhere in here was a door to the basement.

The break-in tripped a magnetic sensor, which sent a signal down a thin wire to the small alarm-control box in the basement. That had triggered the Klaxon that screeched through the house, but the system wasn’t finished. A telephone wire ran out of the control box into a multi-line office phone, the kind that had once been white but had yellowed with well over two decades of age. The phone had a handset, next to which ran a vertical line of eight buttons, each with a red light. The red light next to
LINE ONE
lit up. The phone’s speaker let out a brief dial tone, then seven rapid digital beeps.

Pookie saw the tall turret of Erickson’s mansion up on the left. Cars lined the curb, leaving nowhere to park. He saw the house’s driveway — it was wide open. He didn’t want to park there and draw attention from anyone who might be in the house, but he was out of time. He pulled in, locking up the breaks to skid agross the gravel. He grabbed his Streamlight Stinger flashlight and was out the door even before the Buick rocked back from the sudden stop. He heard the house’s ringing alarm. Pookie ran to the mansion’s steps, up to the porch, and saw the smashed-open front doors.

Bryan was already inside. Pookie had to get him out.

In the distance, over the alarm’s blare, he heard the oncoming heavy gurgle of a Harley.

Pookie drew his Glock. Gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, he entered the house, stepping past the fallen door that lay flat on the entryway floor. The alarm screeched its constant, metallic tone. Pookie knelt and aimed his flashlight beam at the door’s edge — it was solid oak. Almost
two inches
of solid oak, strong as hell. Had Bryan done that? With what? A pair of deadbolts winked in his moving flashlight beam. Then Pookie saw something else — a three-foot-long steel bar, the kind used to secure a door.

The bar was bent at one end.

Bryan had ripped through a superthick door, two big deadbolts, and a fucking
steel bar
.

Pookie remembered seeing Bryan jump up on top of the van. It had been dark … he’d been far away … his eyes had been playing tricks on him, et cetera, et cetera. He’d told himself those things, deluded himself into thinking that Bryan was just Bryan and not something else.

Images flashed in Pookie’s thoughts: a cloaked man jumping across a street, from one building to the next; a body with the arm ripped off at the shoulder; Robin talking about new genes and mutations.

Everything connected.

“Oh, shit,” Pookie said.

Bryan was in more trouble than either of them had ever imagined.

Pookie stood, let his flashlight beam play across the house’s dark interior as he walked deeper inside.

The sounds of nighttime traffic filtered up from the street four stories below. The evening wind danced by, not quite strong enough to ruffle his green cloak. His ears had long since tuned out the normal sounds of the city. The only things that he really heard, that he really listened for, were gunshots, screams and — sometimes — the roars.

Below him was Rex Deprovdechuk’s house. Police tape across the door. Would the kid come back? Unknown, but where else to look? Rex had vanished, as had Alex Panos.

Staking out Alex’s apartment had paid off. Alex had come home. The result? Another dead member of Marie’s Children. The Issac boy had died up on the roof, but that was how things went.

Everyone dies eventually.

Beneath the heavy cloak, he felt a buzz from his pager.
The house
. He didn’t need to look at the pager to know this.

His hands did a fast, automatic pat-down: bow tight on his back; quiver secured, all ten shafts in place; Fabrique Nationale 5.7-millimeter handgun secure in the holster strapped to his left thigh; four loaded, twenty-round magazines at the small of his back; silver-coated Ka-Bar
knife snug in the sheath on his right thigh; and minigrenades strapped to the bandolier across his chest — two concussion, two thermite, two shrapnel.

It had been a very long time since he’d had visitors. He had to get home, show them some hospitality.

Bryan stood at the bottom of the basement stairs. He wasn’t sure if he could move. Every atom in his body screamed at him to stop. His dreams, where he’d killed people,
eaten
people, those had been bad, perhaps the worst things he’d ever experienced.

But those hadn’t been the only dreams.

The dream of being dragged … dragged into
this
basement. Hurt, wounded, afraid, bleeding — dragged into this basement by a
monster
.

A monster that could be down here, waiting.

No, the monster was gone; Bryan had watched it leave.

But when would it return?

The house alarm wasn’t as loud down here. His flashlight beam bounced through the blackness, illuminating a glossy wooden floor, crown molding, even a fireplace. The long space looked like a small ballroom from days gone by.

At the back of the room, he saw a door. Engraved letters gleamed from a brass plaque. They spelled out:
RUMPUS ROOM
.

Bryan walked toward the door.

Pookie had to hurry, he knew that, but he couldn’t look away — he needed just a few seconds to take it all in. Everything his flashlight lit up seemed to reek of money. Turn-of-the-century money. The place looked like it was taken out of a movie from the days of the lumber barons, the gold barons, the whatever barons. Back then, men had built places like this for their wives and daughters, to impress the city or simply to let everyone know just how rich they were. Pookie was standing in the nineteenth-century equivalent of a red sports car.

A heavy staircase rose up to his right. To his left, something glowed from within a wide, open doorway. Pookie stepped through. Inside of a marble fireplace guarded by two knee-high brass sphinxes, dying coals gave off a faint, flickering light. His flashlight beam played off endless splendor: a sparkling crystal chandelier; polished redwood paneling with hand-carved trim; marble floors with thick grains of granite and thin
streaks of gold; gleaming brass fixtures; ornate picture frames showing faces of spooky-looking rich dudes.

Outside, he heard the distinctive roar of an approaching Harley, an oncoming Doppler effect that didn’t transition to the fadeaway because the engine idled, then stopped. Pookie pinched his flashlight under his right arm. He pulled out his phone and dialed with his left hand even as he continued to turn, his right hand pointing the Glock before him.

He stopped when his flashlight illuminated an open door.

Through the door were stairs leading down.

The phone rang only twice before Black Mr. Burns answered: “I’m here, man, but I’m flipping out,” he said. “Where the hell are you?”

“Inside.”

“Want me to come in?”

“Not yet,” Pookie said. “Get on the porch and stay there. Don’t let anyone in, not even cops. I’ll call if I need you.”

Pookie hung up. He had to trust that John could manage his fear and control anything that came up. Pookie took a breath, then started down the stairs.

Footsteps. Heavy ones. Bryan shut off his flashlight. He aimed his Sig Sauer back across the ballroom floor toward the base of the stairs. He saw a flashlight beam sliding down the steps, flicking around, followed by legs, then a portly, black-sweater-clad belly that could only belong to one man.

The flashlight beam whipped across the walls, then landed squarely in Bryan’s eyes.

Bryan blinked, held up a hand to block the light. “Pooks, do you mind?”

The beam dropped to Bryan’s feet.

“Clauser! You are seriously chapping my ass. Come on, man, we have to get out of here,
now
.”

Bryan turned his back to Pookie, played his own beam across the dull-brass plaque. The letters of
RUMPUS ROOM
gleamed and danced.

“Through here,” he said.

“Bryan,
no
. Dude, come on, the game is over and we lost. If we’re caught here, we are so screwed.”