Poe (34 page)

“But how—”

“Who knows, maybe it’s all just a strange, random coincidence; life is full of those. Or maybe not. Either way, I’m taking it as a sign to leave it alone. I strongly suggest you do the same.”

My heart begins to beat erratically. “So let’s say,
completely
theoretically, someone used this book and conjured a demon. Why would anyone want to do that?”

“
Theoretically
, you could make it do things—your bidding, so to speak. If you had the strength and ability to control it.”

“And if you didn’t?”

“Then I imagine it would control you.”

A dark chill shudders down my spine, and I hope to God that somehow the real Daniel is not aware of what his possessed body is doing. I can’t imagine recovering from that kind of horror.

“How do you do… the whole exorcism part?”

“Like I said, those pages were missing. Ask a priest,” says Ernest irritably while slowly getting to his feet. “I think I’ve done enough here. And I still have packing to do, young man, so, if you’ll excuse me…”

“Ernest, you have to tell me—”

He waves a hand dismissively. “I should have been on the road an hour ago.”

Reluctantly I stand up, slipping the journal into the paper grocery bag. “So the second book…”

“The second book is all about how to fight the monsters.” He pats me genially on the shoulder while unmistakably also walking me to the door. “Good luck with that. Now I am going to search for my cat and try to coax him back into the carrier. It’s not an easy task. He hates that thing; makes him think he’s going to the veterinarian.”

He opens the door pointedly. “No offense.”

“None taken.” I step over the threshold. Thick, darkening clouds now cover the sky, like the mother of all storms is about to hit. And before he can shut the door in my face, I add, “Thanks, Ernest. I really mean that, honestly.”

Ernest slumps slightly and seems to age a decade before my eyes. He glances nervously over his shoulder, as if he too feels someone might be watching, then leans in and says quietly in a rush, “Theoretically, if all this
is
real, then you’d need to conjure a seraph, or angelic being…”

My mind immediately flits to the dream—Nachiel, the good spirit’s name was Nachiel.

“Because if this…
demon
exists, it will use anything and anyone to try to control
you
. Both books make that clear.” Then he grips my arm tightly. “When the abyss looks at you, it wants to draw you in. Become
like
it. Understand?”

“I’m not sure…”

He lets go of me. “Just don’t lose sight of who
you
are. Like I did.”

And with that he swiftly shuts the door.

I stand for a moment on the cement front porch, clutching the paper grocery bag in my right hand. I have stepped past surreal into something the word “supernatural” doesn’t seem broad enough to cover.

Of course, if anyone probably knows how to exorcise a supernatural being, it’d be a supernatural being.

Good thing I know exactly where to find one.

It takes a few minutes of jiggling with the key and muttered swearing before the bolt unlocks. But when the door swings open to my crappy apartment, I’m momentarily stunned. It looks like it was hit by the proverbial tornado.

The couch is on its side, torn to pieces, piss-yellow stuffing scattered across the floor. Every drawer from the kitchen cabinet is open or tossed aside. The one lamp that still worked is broken,
more
glass on the floor, and the egg-shaped chair—
Christ
, the egg-shaped chair looks like someone has taken an ax to it: the amber plastic is shattered into spidery cracks, like a broken windshield. I drop the grocery bag on the floor and walk through it all in a daze, cataloging the damage. Who the hell could have done this?

Right. My non-rent-paying supernatural roomie.

“Goddamn it!” I roughly shove the couch over, back into place. “I told you to leave my fucking stuff alone!” Poltergeist bitch from hell.

I stride over to the fridge to see what she’s got to say for herself, but the magnets are scattered wildly and randomly on the floor—no message.

Then I notice that the refrigerator door itself is open, barely.

Ketchup leaks onto the floor.

But it’s not ketchup; a part of me knows that. Ketchup isn’t so runny. Ketchup isn’t such a dark red color. Ketchup doesn’t drip in small, perfectly rounded drops.

I take a breath. Pull the handle.

Nate’s head is perched on the top plastic shelf. It stares at me blindly with opaque, runny eyes. His mouth is open. On his purple swollen tongue is an antique postcard, a sepia print of a mansion I’m all too familiar with.

Greetings from Aspinwall
.

A small black fly has landed on it. Suddenly the fly jumps away, buzzing up Nate’s left nostril.

Daniel was here.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: NIGHT VISION

W
hy oh why isn’t Lisa answering her cell phone? My heart is racing as I peel through the streets, blowing through red lights and stop signs. And the postcard in Nate’s mouth—oh, God, the postcard—with a note written on the back in a familiar script which turns my stomach.

catch  me  if  you  can

And I can’t shake the feeling that the boundary between dreams, reality, and nightmares is blurring. It wasn’t a dream, this race—or it
was
, but now it’s real, it’s crept into my waking life, and I’m obviously
losing
. I’m too slow, too stupid—
fuck
, why didn’t my father tell me about all this shit? Good people are dying, and I’m like some dumb kid in the classroom; Daniel’s always five steps ahead of me.

My cell phone buzzes in my pocket. I yank out my phone. I see the number, and a wave of sickening relief washes over me.
Finally
Lisa.

“For Christ’s sake, Lisa, where the hell have you been?”

“Dimitri?” asks a quivering voice. “Is that you?”

Not Lisa. Elizabeth.

“Yes,” I say, “yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”

“Is she with you? Please tell me she’s with you.”

Fear stops my heart. “What do you mean? She’s not there?”

“Oh God oh God oh God,” says Elizabeth in a rush.

“You’re sure?” I ask quickly. “You’re sure she’s not there? She’s not upstairs—”

“I’ve looked. I’ve looked everywhere. I thought maybe she went for a walk—but there are bootprints, Dimitri. A man’s.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to keep my voice calm for her while I almost rip my hair out with my left hand. Fuck. Fuck.
Fuck
. “Call the police, okay? Right now, and have them call me. I’ll leave my cell on—”

“Dimitri, I can’t lose her—”

“You won’t.
We
won’t. Just do what I say, okay? I’m going to look for her.”

“Oh God,” she says in a small voice. But she gathers herself. “I’ll call them. I’ll call them right now. But find her, Dimitri.
Find
her.”

Click.

I slam the dashboard five times with my fist, almost break my hand, but it feels good, the pain. It feels good.

I miss the Aspinwall entrance the first time I drive by. I have to stop and backtrack before I find it again. Encroaching shadows obscure the front gate, like it doesn’t want to be found; like the wild underbrush has finally taken over and reclaimed it. I pull over to the side of the road and open the car door. All is quiet and still. There’s a thick metal padlock on the rusting gate, so I do the most convenient thing, which is to grab the gun and shoot the motherfucker. This feels good too.

I jump back into the Mustang and screech down the Aspinwall driveway, running over fallen tree limbs and bits of overgrown weeds. I swear, once I find Lisa I’m going to burn the place down myself, and whatever’s left after that I’m going to knock down with a bulldozer. I want to kill this house,
murder
it if such a thing is possible. I’m driving so fast that the car slides when I hit the brakes, and I come close to hitting one of the columns at the entry.

“Lisa!” I shout as I open the car door.

Nothing. Silence. Not a bird, not a sound, not even a tree limb overhead moves. Everything is as still as death itself. Then my eyes fall on a strange spot of color by the door—a red Maglite.

Just like the one I saw Lisa with.

My heart clenches. “Lisa!”

No response. I grip the gun in my right hand and cautiously approach the door, half expecting Daniel to open it for me. But he doesn’t. In fact the door seems to be locked, so I pick up the flashlight, hold it over the gun (another little trick I picked up from watching cop shows), and then kick it in. This also feels good.

“Lisa!”

Only my voice echoes in the cavernous entry. It feels much darker than the last time I was here. I flash the light through the chandelier, and something small scurries away—a mouse or a large cockroach; it’s impossible to tell. I step into the hall, and the floor creaks beneath me. Dust swirls in the beam of the flashlight, and it all looks exactly the same—or almost the same, because there’s a thin layer of snow dusting the floor where the roof opens up to the sky. And there are footprints. With dragged, scuffled marks.

I take another careful step forward and flash the light into the living room—there’s the dark hole that opened up under Maddy, along with a couple of empty beer cans, probably Nate’s. And then something else—a dark gray lump. I flash the beam across it and discover Nate’s famous night-vision camera.

“Daniel! I know you’re here!”

Nothing.

Slowly, like I’m walking on ice, I test the floor before each step until I’m close enough to the camera that I can reach out for the strap with my foot, pull it to me. It’s dusty and the lens is scratched, but when I hit the power button, the red light comes on. Do I push
PLAY?
Do I want to know?

I push
PLAY.

A greenish-gray image comes into view. It’s out of focus, and at first all I can see is what looks like a chair in the Aspinwall basement; to the right is the skanky mattress on the floor, with the candles in the wine bottles, still unlit. But then the focus adjusts and I can see something move on the chair—someone’s tied to it. I hear a muffled sobbing.

Lisa? I grip the camera tighter, hold my breath.

A shadow lights one of the candles, and then I can see that it’s not Lisa in the chair, it’s a man, but I still can’t see his face, because his head droops over his chest. Off-camera is a scratching sound, then a hiss. The man whimpers, but he doesn’t struggle against the ropes tying him to the chair, as if he’s already given up, given in.

“Now,” says a voice, high and reedy. “Are you ready?”

The man nods his head dully and raises his head.

Nate. His eyes bulge with wide-eyed terror, and his mouth is covered with duct tape.

“Good,” says the voice. Then a tall, thin man comes into view that I immediately recognize from my dreams and from Lisa’s pictures. Daniel. He wears black jeans and a thin white T-shirt. Although the temperature must be freezing, he doesn’t look cold. In fact, his movements are remarkably easy, relaxed, almost clinically detached.

He briskly rips the tape from Nate’s mouth. Nate reels back in pain. Daniel casually crumples the tape in a ball and tosses it to the corner.

“Please,” groans Nate. “
Please
…”

Daniel ignores him. Instead he crouches down and peers into the camera lens, getting closer. He walks out of the frame and then adjusts the tripod. The camera angle rears up to the wooden ceiling, then back down again, centering Nate exactly. Daniel steps back into the frame again; his head cocks slightly to one side, examining, but he must not be satisfied, because he walks out of the frame again. This time the camera is lifted and moved a few steps closer; everything goes fuzzy as the autofocus readjusts. The zoom rushes in, rushes out.

“Still not right,” he says.

Nate’s lips tremble as Daniel steps up behind him, grabs the chair roughly by the back, and then brutally shoves the chair forward. The autofocus clicks in, and I can now see the gash on Nate’s forehead; dark blood drips down his cheek.