The Demonists (8 page)

The floor beneath the stone seemed strangely crumbled, the accumulation of dust and dirt pushed away. John looked down and slid his foot over the broken floor. He then looked up to see that the professor was staring at him intently.

Believing he was on the right path, John placed his hands upon the corners of the stone altar and gave it a push. Nothing happened at first, but then he planted his feet and applied a bit more force and— The stone platform slid to the left, exposing an opening in the floor and high stone steps that led down into the darkness of the earth.

“That is awesome,” John said, eyes attempting to penetrate the darkness.

“We actually found another less dramatic way down that was caused by the quake, but I figured you’d appreciate this.”

“You are so right,” John said, taking the phone from his pocket and turning on the flashlight feature. “May I?” he asked.

“Please,” the professor said, motioning for him to enter.

Carefully John descended, feeling the temperature dropping considerably the deeper he got. The last step ended in a large, circular chamber, with multiple doorways, and over each of the doorways was a symbol.

A symbol that caused the hair on the back of his neck to prickle with anticipation.

“Do you know what this means?” John asked as he slowly walked toward one of the passages, his eyes riveted to the symbol above it. He held up his phone to better illuminate it. “What these mean?”

The sudden roar of a motor practically made him leap from his skin as bulbs strung around the room came to life, flooding the chamber with light. John turned to see that the professor setting down the plastic container of gas for the generator.

“I believe I do, but I was hoping that you would be able to shed some more light on the topic.” Professor Booth walked over to stand beside him. “What do you know about the Demonists?”

John studied the drawings about the doorways. They depicted a monstrous version of some demonic entity—who many believed was a version of the devil himself—trapped inside the confines of a cage like structure, clawed hands closed tightly around the bars of its prison.

“Probably not much more than you,” he began. “A mysterious brotherhood of holy men who combated the spread of evil in the world with their vast knowledge of the supernatural. Many in fact don’t believe that they actually existed, seeing as evidence like this is nearly impossible to come by.”

“And if you think this is impressive,” the professor said, ushering John through the center doorway into an even larger space.

The room was enormous, and John couldn’t even begin to think of how it had been created. It was as if the large space had been gouged from solid rock. Everywhere his eyes looked was something that took his breath away. He recognized objects haphazardly scattered about the room: objects he had read about in his extensive research of the arcane, items of power that had likely been collected by the brotherhood as they traversed the globe.

“What do you think?” Professor Booth asked.

“I think this is one of the most historic discoveries ever been made,” John said, unable to hide the awe in his tone.

“Do you think this actually belonged to them . . . to the Demonists?”

John couldn’t stop looking around. “I do.”

“But why here?” the professor asked. “Why hidden away beneath this monastery?”

“Perhaps they believed that the items they gathered would be safe here,” John suggested. “Unnoticed.”

“But what makes this place more special than any other?”

“Didn’t you say it was the sole purpose of the monks who lived here to make their residence the holiest place on the planet for God’s return?” John asked.

The professor nodded.

“This is the heart of it, then . . . the heart of Heaven,” John said, still looking around. “Where better to store items that could potentially be used for evil?”

“You do have a point,” Huntington agreed thoughtfully.

John stood in the center of the chamber, imagining the great brotherhood of holy men as they traversed the globe finding these objects of potential evil, and returning with them here, to be cleansed of their evil.

Cleansed of their evil,
the words echoed in his skull, each reverberation driving its meaning home to him.

John looked about the room as if for the first time.

“A library,” he said aloud, still searching. “Is there a library?”

The professor laughed as he walked over to a concave section of wall where an ancient shelf stood, still holding some lesser forms of danger. “I was wondering when you were going to get around to asking,” he said. He then placed both hands upon the ancient stone to the right of the dilapidated shelf and pushed.

The shelf swung outward with barely a sound, revealing another darkened passage.

The professor looked to him and beckoned with two fingers as he went through first. John could barely contain himself, rushing toward the darkness.

But wasn’t that what he had done most of his life? Drawn toward the black of the world, attempting to drive it back to make room for the light? He liked to think it so.

Another generator rumbled to life, filling the room with a weak, artificial light that temporarily caused the blackness to recede.

John stood in the entryway, breathless. This room—this chamber— was even larger than the storeroom they had just left. But where the other room had held items of potential evil—baubles, bones, accursed blades, and the accoutrements of black worship—this room held items of even greater power.

This room held the answers to questions long hidden from the world.

The library of the Demonists was where their true power existed.

“This is incredible,” John said breathlessly. As far back as he could see, there were shelves, and on those shelves were heavy, leatherbound books. Stacks of rolled scrolls and parchment littered the tops of long tables between the shelves.

All of them, every book, scroll, and piece of paper, demanding to be read, the knowledge contained there brought into the light.

The tiny flame of hope that he’d nurtured at the beginning of his journey began to grow. To burn. He could feel its heat, starving to be more, desperate to be fed, the potential knowledge here quite possibly enabling him to help those afflicted with the most horrific of curses.

He thought of his wife, lying in a bed, swollen with evil, and realized that the answers he sought could be somewhere in this vast library—mere feet, or even inches, from his fingertips.

“Have they been cataloged?” he asked, eyes tracing the leather bindings as he passed the shelves.

“It’s been started,” Booth said as he followed.

“Do you have a list that I might see?” John asked, moving down the makeshift aisles, searching.

He reached an area at the back of the library chamber where the thick wooden shelves had been arranged in a circle. John walked to the center and saw that they were all empty. It was strange to see open space where everywhere else he looked there were volumes of every conceivable thickness.

“Where?” he asked, saying no more as he imagined what wasn’t there.

Booth chuckled, coming to join him in the center. “Mr. Anastos knows you better than I would have imagined,” the professor said.

John looked at him, confused.

“He said that this would be the area you’d be drawn to.”

“What was here?” John asked, imagining the ghostly apparitions of books on the shelves. Books that were now denied to him. “What books were they?”

“Books of exorcism,” Professor Booth said. “Volume after volume, chronicling the Demonist Brotherhood’s battle with the diabolical across the world, as well as their methods.”

The flames of hope inside John surged. “I have to see them,” he said, attempting to keep his heartbeat steady, trying to stay calm.

“Mr. Anastos thought as much. He had all the volumes taken to his home.”

John waited, unsure of what was to follow. He had to see those books, he had to study and learn their ancient words of power.

Booth abruptly turned and started from the area.

“Wait,” John called out. “I need to . . .”

The professor stopped and removed a cell phone from his pocket. “He wants you to call him,” the professor said, waving the phone. “We’ll have better reception above.”

John hated to leave, but the answers that he sought in the dusty, ancient chambers below the holy place were no longer there.

He stood just outside the ruins, watching Booth speak softly into his phone. After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, the professor turned and offered the phone to John without a word.

John took it and brought it to his ear. “Hello?”

There was a pause and then a voice.

“John Fogg?”

“Yes.”

“Cyril Anastos.”

“Yes, Mr. Anastos. What can I do for you?”

“I believe it’s what I can do for you, John. I have some old books I think you’d like to see.”

“I think you do.”

John imagined the wealthy man smiling on the other side of the call, wielding his power over him.

“Would eight o’clock be good?” the man asked.

“For what?” John questioned, suddenly not sure about where this was going. He knew where he would like it to go, but . . . “For dinner, of course. You will come to my home, and we will con verse about the darkness, and things that go bump in the night, and then . . .”

“And then?”

“I will let you see my precious books.”

John did not respond, hating for anybody to have power over him, but . . .

“Is it a date?” Anastos asked.

He continued to wait, weighing his options, but the image of his wife bound to her hospital bed was enough to sway him. “It’s a date,” John finally agreed.

And ended the call.

T
he princess bed was far too small, but it was the only place where Joyce McKellan could grab any semblance of precious sleep.

Her husband, Bob, slept down the hall in their own room. He called it sleeping, but when she awakened, before slipping back down into the embrace of something more akin to unconsciousness brought on by exhaustion, she could hear him crying out.

Screaming their daughter’s name.

In the morning, before the sun even began to think about rising in the sky, they would both get up—leaving their nighttime places— and silently walk to the stairs, where they would descend to the first floor and begin their wait for another day.

That was how it had been for the last nine days.

Since Rebecca had been taken.

They did not speak as they went about their business, one of them preparing the first pot of coffee for the day while the other checked their phones for messages just in case they might have missed a call. They barely even made eye contact. Grief was all that they could experience— were allowed to experience.

Over and over again Joyce recalled the day when Rebecca went missing. One moment she was there, watching television, and then she was gone.

Joyce’s mind raced with the infinite possibilities of what could have happened. Had she left the house for some reason? Had someone, somehow, come into the house and taken her? Joyce found her mind drifting to the memory of a movie that she had seen on cable as a child, where a little girl had been taken into another world—another dimension—filled with angry ghosts.

Right then she would have taken that insane answer to the question of what had happened to her daughter. At least it was more than what they had now.

Now all they knew was that their daughter had been there and then suddenly wasn’t anymore.

Joyce sensed movement alongside her and watched as the steaming cup of coffee was placed beside her on the little table cluttered with other dirty mugs. Bob shuffled to his chair opposite the couch where she sat, and dropped into the chair, cell phone and portable landline lying in his lap.

That was where they would stay, drinking coffee.

And waiting.

Joyce looked to the clock on the cable box, calculating the number of hours before Agent Isabel would call. She called them every day with an update on the investigation. Joyce thought of the other parents with children who had recently gone missing. Agent Isabel believed that they were all somehow connected.

How many other kids had disappeared? She had to think for a moment to remember the number. Six. Six other children had disappeared from their homes without a trace.

Was it awful that she didn’t care about the other children? That the only child she cared about was her Rebecca? That she would let all those other children stay missing if it meant her daughter could come home to her alive?

Yes, it was awful, but it was also the truth.

She picked up her mug, not in the least bit concerned that her hand was shaking and coffee was spilling over the rim to stain the cream-colored carpet. She sipped the scalding liquid, enjoying the sensation of feeling something other than grief for only an instant before thinking of Rebecca again. Her eyes again went to the cable box to check the time. It was ten minutes later than the last time she had looked, but she went through the process of calculating how long it would be before Agent Isabel called anyway.

Her husband began to sob and she looked at him sitting in his chair, staring off into space. She considered going to him, consoling him with some of her own strength but worried that if she did such a thing she might not have the power to deal with her own misery. She hoped that he would be okay as she continued to drink her coffee, waiting for the phone to ring.

Waiting.

Joyce found that she often slipped into a strange, fugue-like state, a weird place between being awake and asleep where time seemed to pass much more quickly. She actually enjoyed when that would happen, when she slipped away to where she could remember the happier times. She was almost in that state when a sound snapped her cruelly from it.

She immediately looked at her husband.

Bob had lifted the house phone to his ear, but the look of confusion on his face told Joyce that the phone had not rung. He looked at her when the sound came again.

Joyce stood up suddenly, her half-filled cup of coffee spilling onto the floor of the living room as the realization of what she and her husband were hearing became clear.

It was the doorbell.

The doorbell. At that hour? What did it mean? What
could
it mean?

“Oh God,” she heard Bob say. He sounded as if he was going to be sick. He was standing as well, but not moving, as if frozen to that spot in front of his chair.

She was enraged. How dare he stand there, afraid to go to the door? What if it was something important? What if it was about Rebecca?

What if it was?

Joyce used her anger to force her legs to move, propelling her from the living room and into the hallway. She imagined pulling open the wooden door in front of her to see Agent Isabel standing there, a smiling Rebecca in her arms. But as she reached out to the doorknob, another scenario played out in the theatre of her mind. In this one, Agent Isabel stood there alone, an emotionless expression on her face as she blurted out,
“I’m so sorry.”
Sobbing, Joyce drew back the chain on the door. She turned the doorknob.

“Who is it?” Bob asked behind her, and she turned to see him peeking around the living room doorway like a frightened child, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Turning back to the door, she threw it open and stared out through the glass storm door at— Nothing.

Joyce blinked wildly, hot tears burned her face.

There was nobody there. Had they been mistaken? Had they both somehow mistaken some other sound for the doorbell?

The early-morning sun illuminated the front porch in orange hues. She grabbed the latch on the storm door and pulled it down, pushing the door open.

“What?” she heard her husband cry. “What is it . . . who?”

She ignored him, stepping out onto the porch, her eyes darting from left to right just in case somebody had been there but left before she could reach the door.

The neighborhood was deathly quiet, and vacant of life.

“Who . . .?” her husband called out again, this time closer. Brave enough now to come down the hallway.

“Nobody,” she practically yelled back to him.

She stepped off the porch, still looking for something—anything. And then it caught her from the corner of her eye—a tongue of white protruding from the closed lip of the mailbox attached to the side of the house. Joyce stared at the envelope, trying to remember the last time she had retrieved the mail, pretty sure that it had been just the day before. They had received a stack of condolence cards, many of them from total strangers, and Agent Isabel had wanted to see them, envelopes and all.

Joyce opened the mailbox with a rusty-sounding whine and plucked the envelope from the slot where it had been fed. Something shifted inside—multiple things, sliding from one end of the envelope to the other.

“What is it?” her husband asked, fear in his tone.

She turned, shaking the envelope playfully. “Mail?” she said. “I don’t know.”

There were no markings on the envelope, no address, stamps, or postal dates. It was just a plain white envelope.

“Who is it from?” Bob asked as Joyce nearly pushed him out her way on the way back into the house.

She felt her own fear rising her imagination caught fire, and the words exploded suddenly within her brain.

Ransom note.
“Open it,” he ordered, reaching to take it from her.

“Don’t you dare,” she spat, snatching the envelope away, hugging it protectively to her chest. Her husband recoiled with a look of hurt on his face, but she couldn’t care about that.

Slowly she began to open the envelope. Her hands were shaking so violently that she briefly thought of her long-dead grandmother afflicted with Parkinson’s. She slid her finger beneath the seal and began to run it beneath the lip, but her tremor caused the envelope to tear farther down than she expected. A jagged opening was torn through the paper, and the contents of the envelope spilled out onto the wooden floor, bouncing slightly at her feet.

“What . . .?” she asked aloud, staring down at the pearly white kernels that littered the floor, unable to comprehend what she was seeing.

Her husband gasped, telling her that he knew what they were before she did. “Oh God,” he said, the horror in his voice palpable.

And suddenly Joyce felt the strength leave her legs, as if the tendons and muscles had all been cut. She dropped to the hallway floor, jarred by the force of the impact, reaching down with trembling fingers to pluck the small white contents of the envelope up from the floor.

“Oh God,” her husband wailed.

And this time she had to agree.

One by one she lovingly picked them up, collecting each and every piece in the palm of her hand, desperate to make sure that all the teeth had been retrieved. Then she closed her hand tightly about them and held them close to her heart. Joyce was crying now, too, remembering the last time she had seen them.

Displayed in the most beautiful of little girl smiles.

The knife cut through the perfectly prepared filet with little effort as John savored another bite of perhaps the best steak he had ever eaten. The sides were spectacular as well: grilled asparagus, creamed spinach, and a baked potato with all the fixings.

It was an amazing meal, but he found his enjoyment hampered by the memory of the secret library beneath a monastery, and more specifically the items that were missing.

“What about the episode with the teddy bear?” Anastos asked, making John look up from his food. The dark-skinned, older man had fixed him in a steely gaze.

“The teddy bear?” John repeated, wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin. “I believe there were a few times that we dealt with toys.”

Anastos drank from a bottle of Stella Artois, and set the bottle down. “The one where it looked as though it was dancing across the room. Don’t you dare tell me that was real.”

John chuckled. “Then I guess I won’t say anything.” He picked up his knife and fork and began to cut more of his meat.

“Seriously?” the multimillionaire laughed, slapping the hardwood table top with a large, calloused hand. “You’re telling me that actually happened?”

“You told me not to,” John said through a mouthful of steak as he reached for his glass of spectacular Merlot.

“Get the fuck out of here!” Anastos exclaimed, wide-eyed. He snatched up his beer and took a long drink. “This is fascinating . . . absolutely fascinating.”

“The world is a much weirder place than many suspect,” John explained, feeling as though he were in the midst of a television interview.

“And it seems as though it’s getting weirder,” Anastos commented, going back to his own meal.

John said nothing, his thoughts flashing back to that night when everything had changed. Ever since then, things had been escalating, growing so much worse.

So much more evident.

“So, when will we see the next season?” Anastos asked, dark eyes twinkling mischievously. “You can tell me. I won’t share with anyone.”

John shook his head. “I really don’t know,” he said to his host. “I’m not sure if there will be one.”

Anastos leaned back in his chair.

“Don’t tell me that,” he said. “Is it because of your wife? Has she recovered from the explosion?”

“She’s still recovering,” John said, absently playing with his potato. He allowed his host to believe an explosion was the cause of the catastrophe of their last broadcast, as did most of the world. After all, how does one explain that an old urn cracked and released demonic entities that now inhabited his wife’s body?

“Is she all right?” Anastos asked. “Are they saying she’ll recover?”

The image of his wife overtaken by the demonic filled John’s head. “Yeah,” he said simply, setting down his fork, no longer hungry. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“I certainly hope so,” Anastos said, having more of his beer. “How was your steak?” he asked, changing the subject. “Cooked all right?”

“Perfectly, thank you,” John replied.

“Can I get you anything else?”

“God, no,” John said with a polite smile. “If I have anything else I’ll burst.”

Anastos looked to a corner of his dining room and gestured. A flock of white-coated waitstaff suddenly appeared and immediately began clearing the table.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” John said, savoring his wine.

“It’s my pleasure,” Anastos said. “I am more than happy to play host to my favorite television personality.”

“What? He or she couldn’t make it?” John joked.

Anastos laughed. He then picked up his beer bottle and, seeing that it was empty, held it aloft, gesturing for one of his people to take the empty and bring him another. “You wouldn’t believe the thought I put into getting you here,” he said, a sly smile creeping across his tanned, handsome face.

“That was pretty slick,” John said.

Anastos continued to grin. “You were actually the first person I thought of when I received the call about the Demonist library,” he said.

John was taken aback by the man’s familiarity with the ancient brotherhood.

“Ah, so you do know of the Demonists,” John said. “I shouldn’t be surprised, but their existence has all but been lost to the ages.”

Anastos looked smug as one of his waitstaff brought him a new beer. “What, did you think my interest in the weird began with your show?”

John lifted his wine in a mock toast and took a sip.

“How lucky was it that I found a Demonist repository under a property that I owned? Pretty wild, eh?”

John studied him, and the smirk that was teasing the corners of his mouth. “Then it wasn’t an accident?” he asked.

Anastos stood up from the table, holding the beer bottle by the neck. “There were hints in some old documents I uncovered about the possibility that the brotherhood had hidden their possessions beneath places of holy power,” he explained.