Satan's Mirror (8 page)

“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”

Emily gasped in relief. “My name is Emily Goodman. I’m at an abandoned house on Weeden Street.”

“
The
Emily Goodman?” the operator asked. “From that television show
Do You Believe It?
”

“Please. I need help. My cameraman.” Tears coursed down her face. “It took him.”

“What do you mean?”

Something moved in the doorway. A shadow. Black on black. “Oh God,” Emily whispered. “I think it followed me.”

“Ma’am, you aren’t making sense. Who’s following you?”

“Satan.”

Silence. “Is this a stunt?”

“No. I swear. Please send someone to help me.”

“You say you’re on Weeden Street?”

Emily felt faint. She gave herself a mental slap. She couldn’t lose consciousness—it would get her, too. Defiantly, she brushed tears from her eyes. Only then did she realize she still had the strap to Dan’s Olympus wrapped about her hand.

She cradled the camera, wracked with sobs. “He’s gone. I couldn’t save him.”

“Stay on the line,” said the operator.

“I couldn’t pull him back.”

She saw again the look of horror on Dan’s face as the strap broke and she let him go. The air swallowed him. How could he disappear like that? How could it be true?

A shadow shifted inside the house.

Emily’s thoughts froze. “It’s coming. It’s coming.”

“I’ve put in the call, ma’am.”

She dropped the phone, pressing backward as if she could pass through the bars. The devil was coming. It would take her, too. She clutched the camera. Before she died, she would document all she could.

She raised the Olympus to snap a picture of the door, but the media was full. She pulled out the microdrive and, rummaging with one hand through her backpack, replaced it from the stash Dan asked her to carry.

Fighting to keep her aim steady, Emily took picture after picture. The camera flashed like a strobe light. She didn’t know how much time passed, but after a while, she became aware that the night had turned blue.

She paused. Behind her, several car doors slammed.

“Trespassing, Ms. Goodman?” a man said. “Looks like you’re under arrest.”

“Yes. Yes,” she hissed. “Arrest me.”

Emily stood with her muscles cramped and uncooperative. She kept her back against the fence and her gaze upon the porch. Just inside, the darkness stirred. A hulking shape. Growing light outlined the doorway.

Terror rippled through her like an electric current. She lifted a deadened arm. “Something’s in the house.” She pointed.

The light brightened. It speared the porch. Behind it, a shadowy figure emerged.

“All clear,” called the policeman, waving his flashlight.

“Good,” said the officer behind her. “Smith, get the bolt cutters. Let’s get her out of there.”

* * * *

Emily sat wrapped in a blanket beside a desk in the police station. She shook as if she’d been doused in ice water. Three policemen hovered over her. She ignored them. Instead, she focused on Officer Harris, who smiled as he handed her a paper cup filled with hot coffee.

“Normally, we don’t file a missing persons report for forty-eight hours,” Harris told her. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t watch for him.”

“Lucky for you we’re incapable of running a proper investigation,” said one of the officers—the older man who had given her a parking ticket. “Otherwise we would cite you for filing a false report.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked through chattering teeth.

He leaned close behind her, his breath on her ear. “I’m saying this is a police department with work to do. We don’t have time to lend credence to one of your publicity stunts.”

“Stunt!” she cried, twisting about and sloshing coffee over her fingers.

“We have real disappearances to solve with real families waiting for answers, and you come down here and take advantage of their fear and pain to further a TV show.”

“Got it,” a female officer called, curtailing his tirade.

The woman sat behind a computer, downloading the images Emily captured with Dan’s camera. Emily had offered the use of her laptop, which would have made the process easier, but although they confiscated her computer, they refused to use it.

At the woman’s call, the other police officers gathered around. Emily saw the screen clearly, although from a distance. It showed a dark image barely recognizable as a porch and an open door. Although Emily had used the camera’s flash, she realized now she had been sitting too far away. The light barely illuminated the wooden steps.

The female officer flipped through picture after picture, and then halted. “What’s that?”

Emily edged forward in her seat, leaning to see around the backsides surrounding the desk. The screen showed a faint silhouette in the doorway.

She gasped, heart racing. It had been real—someone,
something
had followed her.

The woman forwarded to the next image and zoomed in upon the figure. The older policeman said snidely, “Could that be our missing cameraman?”

“Joey,” Emily murmured.

“What did you say?”

“Vanessa’s boyfriend. We followed him.”

“Vanessa has no boyfriend,” Harris said.

“Sure she has,” said Emily. “The love of her life. Tall guy. Lots of tattoos.”

“Joey Mastrianni,” said the old cop, snapping his fingers. “Yeah, I remember him. Weird kid. Had his whole body tattooed. He and Vanessa were inseparable when they were in school.”

“Then you know him?” said Harris.

“Knew him, more like it. He up and left town a good twenty years ago. I haven’t heard that he’s back.”

“Definitely someone there,” said the woman. She flipped through the photographs, each depicting the dark shadow. Its shape became clearer as it stood away from the doorframe. Then one image showed the figure with glowing yellow eyes.

Emily jumped, crushing her cup. Hot coffee scalded her hand and soaked the blanket. She yelped, but no one noticed.

“What the hell?” the woman said, zooming in.

“A trick of the light?” said Harris.

“This has stunt written all over it.”

Emily dabbed her smarting fingers, remembering Joey’s scarred face. What was his part in all this?

Two more police officers entered. One was the curly haired man she’d met when first arriving in Saint Augustine.

“There’s no one in that house,” he said. “We checked every room.”

“Quite a few rabbits, though,” said the other. “And we found this.” He dropped Dan’s camcorder on top of the desk.

Emily had forgotten about it. She sat straighter in her chair, swelling with hope. This would show them. No one would think she was involved in a hoax after seeing what she had seen. The woman hooked the camcorder to a firewire cable attached to her computer, and then settled back to watch.

The video was grainy, but her crew could clean it up. It showed Weeden Street lit by quaint streetlamps and the walkway to Vanessa’s house, then switched to her as she followed the path along the fence. The shot faded to black when Dan entered the shadows between the properties.

There came a blink. Light flared, and Emily saw herself standing before the staircase. She looked petrified. After a moment, she climbed toward the second floor. Dan swept the camcorder upward and caught a glimpse of shining, red eyes. When he reached the landing, he showed a rabbit hopping away.

With dreadful slowness, he followed Emily through a door. She crossed the room, stepping over a pentagram laid out on the floor. The video crackled and jumped. Interference, she thought, remembering what Dan said about electromagnetic fluctuations. She saw herself hold the ELF meter to the disturbance on the wall—but Satan’s Mirror was blurred. It had the look of a blot-out, like a botched erasure.

It didn’t matter. They would still hear the devil’s voice—and as if on cue, the devil told her she was fragile.

With a pang of loss and sorrow, she saw Dan’s face as he set the camcorder on the floor. The camera angled upward, flooding the doorway with light. Emily walked into the shot, looking into the hall.

The quality of the video worsened. Emily heard garbled screams, saw flashes of herself fighting to grab something. Occasionally, she saw Dan’s foot or leg held high in the air. It would have been laughable had she not been there, had she not known what was happening.

With an audible pop, the video sharpened. It showed Emily scrambling from the floor and running out the door. For several minutes, the camcorder continued to run, showing the doorway of the silent room. Then the police came in and switched the thing off.

Emily closed her eyes. Part of her wanted to plead with them to take a second look, to see past the flickering images to what truly happened. But a larger part knew what her reaction would be if she’d been shown such a video.

“Hoax,” said the older officer, echoing her thoughts.

Harris returned to the desk where she sat. “There are more microdrives in your backpack. Anything on them?”

She shook her head, tears filling her eyes. “Extras. Dan gave them to me to hold. You can keep them if you want. You can keep everything.”

She hid her face in her hands. A high-pitched sound escaped her—like the mewling of a kitten. Stop it! She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I don’t think we’ll need them.” He put the disks into her bag, and then slid the phone her way. “You’ve been read your rights. By law, you’re entitled to a phone call. I’ll leave you alone for a moment.” He walked to the desk where the video was on replay.

Emily sagged. She never felt so tired, so alone. With trembling fingers, she punched numbers into the phone.

Ross Devine answered groggily. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

“Boss,” she said, her voice quaking, “we’ve had some trouble.”

She could almost hear him sit up in bed. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“Dan is gone. He…disappeared.”

“What? What happened?”

She balled a fist in her hair, unable to answer.

“Emily! What did you see?”

She looked across at the video. What
had
she seen? “I don’t know. I’m not sure anymore.”

“Where are you?”

“Saint Augustine police station. They have me on trespassing charges.”

“All right,” Ross said. “I’ll handle everything. I want you on the first flight back.”

A harsh mix of emotion swamped her—relief, gratitude, guilt. “But I can’t. I can’t leave him.”

“I told you I’d take care of it. I want you home.”

TEN

Emily’s eyes watered in the bright, morning sunlight as she stepped out of the police station. While Ross and the lawyers worked their long distance magic to set her free, she managed to get a couple hours of troubled sleep in the holding pen. This lack of rest mixed with the horror of the night before caused her head to throb and her stomach to twist. She tried not to think of Dan, but his absence was like a dull ache that wouldn’t go away.

True to his word, Officer Harris returned her backpack along with Dan’s camera and camcorder. The police then booted her out the front door without the courtesy of calling a cab or allowing her the use of a phone book. Emily thought this was harassment, but she was too tired to argue. Now she stood at the corner, feeling dazed and fighting to gather her thoughts.

A police cruiser pulled before her, and Officer Harris leaned across the front seat to open the passenger door. “Hop in. I’ll drive you to your van.”

She dragged the backpack off her shoulders and slid into the car. “I thought it was against policy to assist troublemakers.”

“It is,” he said, smiling, “but I figure, hey, I’m off-duty, heading home. It wouldn’t hurt to give you a lift.”

“That’s not what the others said.”

“Well, the others are convinced you’re running a scam.”

“What do you think?”

He hesitated. “I don’t believe it is possible for anyone to vanish into thin air. However, it is possible to make it appear they did. Magicians do that sort of thing all the time.”

“You’re telling me it was a magic trick?”

“I’m saying you didn’t see what you thought you saw. And, clearly, there was someone else in that house with you.”

She blew out a breath, leaning back against the headrest, watching buildings and trees glide by. “Can I ask you something? Saint Augustine may be small but it’s a city nonetheless. A lot of people live here.”

“More all the time.”

“Then how is it that when I mentioned Vanessa, you knew who I was talking about? It doesn’t make sense that everyone should know her.”

He put on his turn signal and completed a turn before answering. “Vanessa is active in the Preservation Society, and has been a political thorn in the mayor’s side on more than one occasion. But that’s not how I know her.” He glanced at Emily. “This is off the record, right?”

“Of course.”

“There’s been an upswing in disappearances the past five or six years. I mean, we’ve always had some, but lately—” He shook his head. “Most were drifters or homeless people. One was a high school kid who was into the occult. Then there was old Grimley, whose wife had just died. He owned the house next to the one where you were found. They vanished without a trace. Cases never closed. All of them with one thing in common—each had seen Vanessa the week they disappeared.”

“You’re kidding,” Emily said. “She’s been under investigation before?”

“Many times. Always comes out clean. I know she’s involved somehow. A gut feeling, you know? But I can never prove it.”

Emily looked away. Tears burned her eyes. She’d also had a gut feeling—and look what happened to Dan. “Vanessa owns that house now. The one next door. She said Joey told her to buy it.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for Joey Mastrianni, thanks to you. It’s a good lead.”

She nodded, drying her cheeks with the heel of her hand.

They turned onto a residential roadway she recognized. Weeden Street. A shudder coursed through her. She stared out the windshield as Harris pulled the squad car behind her van.

“Will you wait until I get to my vehicle?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and weak.