The Dark Man (19 page)

Only now it’s directly in front of me and so loud that I can feel the sound slithering over my skin.

Before I can react, before I can dart back into the room, a searing hot hand clasps my throat, clenching tightly, sharp claws gouging my skin.

I lash out with the crucifix, trying to use it as a hammer, and sling more holy water at the invisible demon in front of me.

Another acid-drenched screech fills the hall, and underneath it, I can hear Mike shouting, “Ford! Get back in here!”

The white-hot hand is crushing my windpipe. I manage to gurgle, “Can’t. Too strong.”

Another stream of holy water. Another wail.

“In … the name of … God, our Father in Heaven … I command you … Get off me!” I shove the crucifix forward, in the direction where I suspect Azeraul’s face might be, and I hear the crackling, hissing sound of searing demon flesh.

A howling, louder than anything I’ve heard so far, explodes throughout the static-filled space around me. It’s hideous and coated with such vile hatred that it weakens my heartbeat.

Then, a deep, disembodied voice says, “Hell waits for you, Ford.”

And then the pressure on my neck is gone.

It hurts like, well, it hurts like hell, and I feel like someone held a hot iron to my throat, but at least I can take a breath.

It’s warmer, too. Noticeably warmer, as if the temperature in the hallway is clicking up a degree with each tick-tock of the supposedly broken grandfather clock downstairs.

I slump to the floor. I barely have the energy to hold my head up.

My vision swims, and Mike is at my side, hands under my arms, trying to drag me back into the bedroom. He’s saying something, yet I can’t make out what, because the only thing that’s at the forefront of my mind is that this demon called me out by name. Again.

There’s power in a name.

I’m not sure how long I’m out, but it’s the second time I’ve been unconscious around Mike today. At least it wasn’t his fists of fury that put me down into la-la land. I’m hoping this doesn’t become a trend, because I’m not a fan of it.

Actually, before I open my eyes, I lie here for a second because I can hear Mike talking, and it’s slightly amusing. He obviously doesn’t know I’m conscious yet, and this might be a perfect chance for good ammunition down the road.

“Dear Heavenly Father, hallowed by thy name, your will be done on earth as … As what? Jesus. Why can’t I remember this? On earth as in heaven! Right. That’s right. And then—shit. Forget it. Amen. Just do
not
let him be possessed, okay? Please? I know you’re up there, God, and I know you’re listening, because there can’t be good without evil and evil without good, and whatever that thing was, it was evil, so I know you’re up there, too. Just—look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I didn’t stick closer to my friend, and I’m sorry I abandoned him, but you gotta understand—it was harsh—
harsh
—that thing we did.
He
did. And I couldn’t stand by that, and now, Jesus, who knows what’s going on. All I’m trying to say is, if you’ll take this off of him, get this demon out of him, we can fight it, and I’ll make him, or we—
we
—can figure out what it was that attacked the Hopper girl, okay? We’ll fight it for you. We’ll be holy warriors, or whatever.”

I open my eyes and say, “Dude, it’s not your fault.”

Mike yelps, lurches back, and then pulls me in with a strong hug. He’s overjoyed for a good fifteen seconds before he leans into a solid punch that will certainly leave a bruise on my chest.

“Damn you, Ford,” Mike says. “How long were you awake?”

“Lord’s Prayer. After all these years, how it is possible that you don’t have it memorized?”

“You better believe I’m gonna learn it now. Are you okay?” He helps me to my feet, hands on both of my shoulders, and starts to survey me the way a mother does when her only son gets home from the war.

“Does it seem brighter in here?”

I hadn’t noticed that the storm finally arrived, but it’s reached an apex. Lighting flashes and thunder bellows its damning curse. Bulging, pregnant drops of rain slam against the windows.

Yet the spare bedroom, our sanctuary, appears to be livelier. Alleviated. Unburdened.

“I swear, man, as soon as you got rid of that thing, it was almost like somebody turned on a low-watt lightbulb or lifted a blanket off the streetlights. So crazy.”

Mike lets go of me and backs up a step with his hands on his hips. I roll my shoulders and crack my neck, then give him some bad news. “It’s not completely gone,” I say. “It’s still here.”

A grin spreads his lips, pulls his cheeks up until the dimples are on display—the same dimples that thousands of spotcamgirls tweeted and posted about for years. I haven’t seen Mike smile like that since, well, it was a long time before Chelsea Hopper. I can remember that much.

“You’re fucking with me, right?”

I’m not, and he knows it. We’ve been friends and partners long enough for him to understand what I’m getting at. I’ve mentioned that I’m ‘sensitive’ to spirits, for lack of a better word, and at the moment, I can feel that Azeraul remains in this house. Lurking. Holding back. Waiting and conserving his energy. If it’s like before, it’ll be another fifteen minutes or so before he can fully attack again.

I don’t plan for us to be in this house for that long, but I’m not done yet.

“You can feel it, can’t you?”

“He’s weak, but he’s here. I don’t know where.” I point to Mike’s utility belt. Each of his devices hang in their slots like grenade duds, useless and weighing him down. “You got any batteries left for those?”

“Ford, no.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah, one set left for the DVR. He didn’t get those.”

“Load ‘em up.”

“
Hell
no. Let’s beat feet and get away from it. It’s too powerful, and this is a fight we can
not
win. You
know
me, Ford. I don’t ever back down from a challenge, but I know when to cut my losses and move on.”

I hold out my hand and waggle my fingers. The international sign for “gimme.”

“I’m telling you, don’t do it. Don’t risk it. Look at your neck. You’re already contaminated. One more like that, and—”

“Mike! Enough. Just give me the damn DVR. You can leave if you want, but I need answers.”

He relents with a huff forceful enough to knock down a Clydesdale.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just that you remind me of somebody I used to know.”

“Who?”

“The old Ford. The real one.”

The upstairs seems dead—pardon the afterlife pun—so Mike and I move downstairs. He keeps checking his watch, every fifteen or twenty seconds, and I finally tell him to chill because the anxious repetition is driving my own angst level exponentially higher. “And besides,” I tell him, “if this right-hander’s recharge time is a little over fourteen minutes, then we have—”

“Eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds left,” Mike says, interrupting with a voice that quakes over some obvious nervous tension.

“That’s an eternity. If we were in the fourth quarter of an NFL game, we’d have, like, another thirty minutes to go.”

“Shitty metaphor. We don’t get any timeouts.”

I smirk and see that my attempts at calming him aren’t working. He’s almost vibrating.

“You getting
any
thing on the live feed?” he asks.

“
Nada
. Quiet as a tomb in here.”

“Are you intentionally fucking with me?”

“Probably a little.” I readjust the earbuds, and if it’s possible to physically do so, I listen harder. There’s only the sound of our shoes on the hardwood floor, Mike’s uneasy breathing, and the occasional creak of a board underfoot or a door swinging open. I don’t bother audibly marking them on the recording because I’m so amped up about this moment, I’m mentally logging everything. It’s only the two—well, three—of us inside this house, and the contamination from outside is so minimal it might as well not exist. We’re in a vacuum, just us and him.

“Seven fifty,” Mike informs me.

“Relax.
Please
.”

“I can’t, man.” He cracks his knuckles and wiggles his fingers. “I don’t know what to do with my hands when I’m not holding something.”

“Use one of them to cover your mouth. I’m trying to listen. In fact, maybe I should go a little batshit on him, huh? Get crazy aggressive and try to draw him out before the timer stops.”

“Are you nuts?”

“Rhetorical question? We draw him out before he’s full strength, we get control of the situation, we get some answers, and we’re gone. It’ll be like we’re psyching him out or something. Maybe demons are just like us. Maybe they get stupid when they’re all worked up.”

“Seven minutes, fifteen seconds. If you’re going to do it, do it now.”

“There’s Big Mike. Back again.”

“Whatever.
Go
. Do it.”

Mike is basically going into this blindfolded and wearing earmuffs since I’m holding the last working piece of equipment. It has to be slightly unnerving to simply stand there and wait on the next attack to hit without any forewarning. So I understand his hesitation, but if I get what we need, it’ll all be worth it.

“Azeraul!” I call out. “Demon child of Satan! How did it feel earlier when I kicked your ass with the power of God? Did you like that? Huh? Tell me. How’d it feel when a pissant, pathetic mortal like me gave you a nice little battle scar? All the other demons around the block, laughing at you, pointing at that nice crucifix branded on your forehead. I heard it, Azeraul. I heard the hiss. I heard your flesh searing with the burn of God’s love. You’re weaker than I thought. You’re pitiful.”

“Ford—”

“I got this.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Azeraul. Are you there?” I hold up a wait-a-second finger to Mike when the distant sound of a child’s laughter—a young girl—comes across the earbuds. I whisper to Mike, “Laughing. He’s here. Taking the form of a girl.”

“Oh, shit. Okay, okay, just be careful.”

“I can hear you,” I shout, slipping into the living room. The clock on the wall, a plain-faced one that maybe cost Craghorn a buck at a discount store, ticks with abandon, like it’s projecting through a megaphone. “Come talk to me.”

More giggling, followed by the angelic voice of a young child. She sounds like she might be about five years old, but I’m not fooled. I
know
this is Azeraul. I’ve been doing this awhile, and there’s not much creepier than a foul-mouthed, wretched, rotting right-hander trying to pass itself off as a kid.

In the girl’s voice, he says, “
That’s not my name, silly
.”

The voice sounds as if it’s on my left, so I turn in that direction and face the corner. “Yes, it is. Louisa told us. You’ve been keeping her hostage, and she knows you. Demon, thy name is Azeraul, and you must obey the word of—”

“
Shut up
,” the girl’s voice screeches. “
I … am not … Azeraul
.”

“Your lies are pathetic. We know your name. We have power over you.”

Mike tugs at my sleeve. “Goddamn it, dude, don’t leave me hanging. What’s it saying?”

“It’s lying,” I tell him. “Says its name isn’t Azeraul.”

“Is it the same one? Maybe the big one left.”

I shake my head, feel the earbud wires swaying against my neck, and say, “It’s him. I can feel it. Definitely trying to disguise himself.”

Mike groans. “God, I hate it when they do that.”

I lift my voice to the corner and take two steps closer. “Azeraul. Tell me now. Tell me what you know about Louisa Craghorn.”

Nothing. Just that fucking clock ticking like John Henry hammering a railroad spike.

I try a different tactic: flattery. “If you’re so powerful, then you must know things that we don’t. Doesn’t that feel good? Having information? Use that power of yours. Who murdered her? If you tell us that, we’ll leave, and you can have your house back. You win, we win.”

Silence.

“Was it her husband? Did Dave Craghorn find out that his wife was cheating on him, and he murdered her?”

Excruciating silence.

I’m afraid I’ve lost him or that he’s decided to retreat for now, to regroup and build up more energy before he comes back for another attack.

“Time check, Mike.”

“Four minutes, eighteen seconds. Did he ditch? Should we go?”

“Calm before the storm, I think.” I move around the love seat and short-step over to the corner where the demon may have been. I don’t smell sulfur, nor do I see any signs of him, like floating black masses or darting orbs of light. It’s times like this that the full-spectrum camera would come in handy. It’s a lesson we thought we’d learned ages ago. You can never have enough batteries.

Especially against a right-hander.

Mike says, “The hair on my arms is standing up.”

I look over at him, concerned. “Like, from fear, or what? A presence?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Both?”

Back when the show was running, and even before then when we were two goofy guys with a couple of cameras and a dream, the typical “sensitive” things rarely happened to Mike.

This is not a good sign. I’m worried that Azeraul is sneaking around here, trying to steal Mike’s energy from him, perhaps even invade his body.