The Deal (16 page)

Deep inside my heart there was a part of me
that felt certain it was best to leave it all well alone, but the
other part of me, probably the part that had loved her for five
years needed to know the whole truth.

Heading back out into the bedroom I sat on the
edge of the bed and began to pull my boots on. Occasionally I would
glance up at the photograph leaning against my alarm clock as if it
was demanding my attention. The picture of Lisa and the seven
smiling kids, one of which was Satan’s own spawn, was a solid
reminder that I wasn’t chasing after shadows.

Lisa really had been a kindergarten teacher.
That part of her seemed to be solid, it was just the rest of it
that needed filling in. The young woman at the archives had seemed
certain that my wife had formerly been a guest at Muirmill Asylum,
which was located about an hour away from my apartment.

In my rush to find out what happened to the
children in Lisa’s class, or to be blunt, what she had done to
those poor kids, it had never crossed my mind that she would have
had such a dark past. I most certainly would never have thought of
her as a mental patient of any description.

I tried to recall all the times I had spent
with her, looking for any signs that may not have been so obvious
then, but in hindsight would show me that there was something
unhinged about her.

In my
memories,
there
were
no signs of erratic behaviour. Lisa was the most gentle and
loving woman I had ever met and she certainly showed no signs that
hidden deep within her was a brutal, murdering
psychopath.

It did not add up and as I tied my laces, I
could feel my resolve become stronger. I was going to find out who
my wife really was, regardless of Satan’s warnings not to go poking
around in her past. I simply couldn’t accept that such a wonderful
woman deserved to languish in hell, and even if it would mean
bringing on my own damnation quicker than I wanted, I was prepared
to see it through to the end.

Once I was back on my feet again,
I headed towards the living room. I rarely stayed in any one place
for any longer than six months, so most of the apartments I had
taken residency of only had the basics as far as furnishings
were
concerned.

This apartment had been no
different with just a small sofa, a cheap wooden coffee table and a
matching TV unit taking up
space
in the living
room.

I was certain that I had tossed my
keys
onto
the scratched surface of the coffee table the
previous night, but the table held nothing
except
a couple of cup
coasters. Frowning I turned to the kitchen counter which acted like
a separating partition between the two rooms.

Almost instantly I spotted the bunched keys
but as I picked them up and the cold metal touched my skin, a
violent shiver shot down my body starting from the top of my head
and zooming straight down to my feet.

It was the kind of sensation that normally
preceded a visit from the dark lord himself. I stood on the spot,
glancing between the kitchen and the living room, watching and
waiting for the cloud of black smoke which would signal his
arrival.

I could feel the creases on my forehead grow
deeper as I stood there and waited. Nothing. No Satan. No monk from
hell. Just nothing accept me and myself.

The cold shiver that wracked my
body was always a clear warning that I was about to have the
company
of the hellish kind and yet I was still alone. Was it a
trick? Would I go to move for the leather jacket which hung limply
over the sofa and suddenly be surprised by the eternal
trickster?

I decided to grab my jacket anyway, and as I
slid my arms into the sleeves I half expected to turn around and be
looking into his freezing cold blue eyes. But no, not this time. My
early warning system had failed me and for some strange reason that
made me feel uncomfortable.

Zipping up the tattered brown leather jacket,
I still had it in my head that I was about to get a surprise visit.
Even as I made my way towards the apartment door I was certain I
would hear his voice sound behind me just as I reached for the door
handle.

Feeling very unnerved, I unlocked the door to
my apartment and stepped out into the hallway. I glanced back
inside my empty apartment for a few seconds before pulling the door
closed and locking it with the key.

As I made my way towards the elevator, I was
beginning to feel that something was wrong. There may not have been
a visible presence in my tiny apartment, but I felt certain that
something had paid me a visit.

As I waited for the carriage to arrive on my
floor I studied the ancient symbols tattooed around my wrists and I
had to fight the temptation to trace the symbol of infinity which
would render me invisible to any minion from hell.

Now is not the time for that
Sam.
I thought and pulled my jacket
sleeves back over the symbols. But despite what I thought, I did
have a feeling that I was going to have to use that ability to be
invisible at some point in the day.

Cars of all makes and models zoomed past as I
stood at the roadside waiting for a cab. The rain was coming down
in sheets by the time I had made my way outside, and despite being
soaked, I actually felt good. The feeling of the cold droplets
splashing against my face reminded me that I was still human, and
still very much alive.

I stood there being drenched by the heavens
for around ten minutes before the old yellow cab pulled up next to
where I was standing.

As I quickly slipped into the back seat,
closing the door behind me as I went, I noticed the driver was a
tired looking old man, his skin the colour of dark
chocolate.

‘
Where you headed to my friend?’
Asked the driver, his voice deep and cracked from years of
smoking.

‘
Muirmill Asylum.’ I said,
glancing out the window. A young couple, shared an umbrella as they
made their way past my cab and headed further down the street, but
it seemed that the rain had forced everyone else off the
streets.

‘
You do know that place has been
closed for quite some time now, don’t you?’ I could see the driver
staring back at me from the
rearview
mirror, his eye’s
showing familiar tendrils of red which told me he did not sleep
much.

He put the old taxi into gear and with a
sudden lurch we were joining the rest of the city traffic. I
guessed it didn’t matter to him if I wanted to change my mind based
on his question, he was getting money from me one way or
another.

‘
I’m doing some research for a
novel I want to write. Apparently it’s one of the most haunted
places in the city.’ I said, trying to keep the conversation as
upbeat as possible.
Heck,
I even offered the old man one of
my best fake smiles right back at his rear view mirror.

I expected with the driver being an old hand
at the taxi driving business he would probably regal me with tales
about the asylum that he had picked up from various passengers
through the years. What I got instead was actually quite
surprising.

‘
I don’t believe in all that
haunted bullshit. It’s just one of many old buildings that need
pulling down.’

‘
Surely the history of the place
must interest
you,
though?’ I had no idea why after
years of having to tell cab drivers to shut up that I was now
trying to engage this old man in a conversation.

‘
Nah. I’ve heard a shit load of
stories about the place. I’m sure that every one of them was
nothing more than a hyped up piece of human imagination.’ I could
have been mistaken, but I thought I could detect a note of
bitterness in the old man’s voice.

As the cab came to a stop for a red light
about twenty minutes into our journey, I began to realize that I
may be sitting behind my own fountain of knowledge. The simple
truth was I had no idea what the building looked like. I knew even
less about the inside of it.

The miserly old man behind the
wheel though had been told stories about the place which although
he may think are all bullshit
could, in fact,
help me locate
whatever I was hoping to find there, which at the moment I just
didn’t know.

So I decided to try and engage him further. If
nothing else it beat sitting in silence listening to the noise of
the traffic outside.

‘
What was the worst story you
heard?’ I asked eventually, trying to mentally prepare myself to
remember as much as possible.

‘
Well, one of the most fucked up
stories I heard was about a room they had in the loft space of the
building. The story goes that two of the top psychiatrist’s they
had
were
secretly devil worshippers or some dumb shit like
that.
Anyway,
these two doctors supposedly had been taking
patients up to the loft where they would torture them and sometimes
kill them to complete whatever bullshit ceremony a devil worshipper
does.’

It was strange listening to the old man
because it was like listening to a younger version of myself.
Before I had made the deal which put me in the situation I was in
now, I too thought things like devil worshipping and haunted
buildings was just the work of somebodies overworked
imagination.

I even smiled to myself as I listened and
wondered what he would think if I told him my story.

‘
Sounds a bit far-fetched.’ I
said.

‘
Far-fetched? Fuck
me,
boy, that’s only a small taste of some of the crazy made up
shit I’ve heard.’ The driver now had the chat bug. As he popped a
cigarette between his lips and lit it
with
a disposable
lighter he had nearby I prepared myself for the next
story.

‘
There is one story that actually
hinges on being believable.’ He said through a cloud of grey
smoke.

‘
Really?’ My body suddenly became
alive again as he got my curiosity. Every bullshit story normally
has some small element of truth in it, even if it was just a tiny
fragment it could be all that I needed.

‘
Yeah. This story goes along the
lines that the same two doctors started accepting perfectly sane
people into the asylum so they could
mentally
torture them and
essentially make them insane.’

I watched the rain drops hit the window next
to where I sat and then turn into rivulets as the speed of the cab
increased once again.

‘
You didn’t believe the story
about the loft but you think that one might be true?’ I couldn’t
understand his reasoning.

‘
Well,
it’s not uncommon for someone to pretend their
nuts to get themselves out of trouble. You know, like those idiots
that get caught by the cops and pretend to be schizoid. So instead
of being sent to jail they would be sent to a place like
Muirmill.’

I actually felt quite stupid once he had
explained his thoughts on that story. Stupid because the insanity
plea is probably about the only option left on the table for a
killer like myself when the law eventually catches up with you. It
also wasn’t unheard of for some of the doctors to be more insane
than their patients, so I could see now why that story was more
believable to the taxi driver.

Then again, after experiencing what I had, the
loft story did not sound all that far-fetched either, but there was
no way I could tell that to the cabby.

‘
Oh, there was one other story.’
Said the driver and he actually chuckled at the thought of it.
‘Someone once told me that while they were inside the building they
could see this huge monster with wings. Apparently it was trying to
find something and it couldn’t leave until it did.’

A
monster
with wings? Images of the
Grimoyle’s quickly sprung to the forefront of my mind. It was the
vision of those monstrous creatures that solidified my
determination to carry on with my quest. If Satan’s winged demons
where there searching for something, most likely another artefact I
presumed, then I needed to find it first.

‘
Now that does sound like complete
bullshit.’ I said, forcing a laugh that I simply did not
feel.

‘
Jesus Christ, yeah. I get some
seriously fucked up individuals in the back of this old tin
bucket,’ and with that he returned his attention to the road and
silence befell the interior of the cab.

At some
point,
I understood
that I was going to have to stand up to Satan. Whether I would win
the fight or not wasn’t something I dwelled on at that point simply
because I knew I needed a lot more help in the form of the ancient
artefacts that the dark lord himself had been sending me to collect
on his behalf.

Where are you Pertilius?
I couldn’t help but think to myself as I
continued to watch the rain splatter against my window, which
turned the buildings outside into twisted and deformed versions of
themselves.