The Summer We Lost Alice (39 page)

"I'm trying to discover the truth, Ethan. You're an imaginative person. That summer, you thought Mrs. Nichols was a witch who stole children's youth! It was a fantasy you believed wholeheartedly, just as you believe this one. Can't you see that?"

Ethan felt his pulse racing. Why was Myer doing this? Why wasn't he as concerned about Brittany as Ethan was? Ethan felt like a child again, being reasoned with by a wise adult who—

That was it. Myer called him by his given name, "
Opochensky." The line of questioning—it was so obvious. Myer was doing this on purpose, making him feel like a child, making him doubt his own perceptions, the evidence that was so plain.

And why was he sober?
Because he hadn't been home alone, where the booze would call his name. He'd been out. He'd been on a mission.

Ethan reached under his shirt and pulled out the pistol. He aimed it squarely at Myer's gut, hoping that his shaking hand didn't undermine the threat.

"You were there," he said. "You helped her. You're in on it."

"Ethan, put the gun away! You aren't thinking clearly! Why on earth would I—"

Ethan pulled the trigger and planted a bullet into the throw pillow next to Myer's hip. The ammo was still good.

"Jesus!" Myer exclaimed. "You are crazy!"

"Maybe I am! Maybe I'm throwing my life away but I don't care! Tell me, you sonuvabitch, or so help me I'll kill you right now! Where are they?"

"Ethan, my boy—"

The next bullet grazed Myer's side before burying itself in the sofa. Ethan hadn't meant to fire, but the adrenaline coursing through his body pulled the trigger for him.

Myer cried out. He clutched his side, felt blood soaking through his shirt.

"All right!" he said. "I'll tell you! But you've got it all wrong! I can explain!"

"Explain in the car," Ethan said.

"THEY'RE AT the motel," Ethan said.

He'd punched up Heather's contact info on his phone as he drove, weaving dangerously. Thank God for the Bluetooth, since he had to steer while keeping the pistol leveled at Myer. Myer was in pain and didn't seem inclined to put up a fight, but the pistol was a good deterrent.

"Are they awake?" Ethan said.

"Still coming out of it," Heather said. "Cat
mumbled something about Miss Lilian before she went back under again. Sammy's all over it."

"Yeah, it's confirmed. I'm with Myer. He was in on the kidnapping. He's the one who told me where they are."

"Do you believe him? He might be sending you on a wild goose chase."

"If he is, his goose is cooked. I'm holding him at gunpoint."

Sammy's voice appeared on the line.

"Ethan, I'm
sendin' units to the motel."

"I'm closer. I'll meet you there."

"Don't do anything stupid!"

"Too late."

Ethan tapped off the connection. He jabbed the gun at Myer.

"Spill it," he said.

"The evil's loose. It's a hundred times more dangerous than it was when it was contained in the statue. The only way to stop it is to contain it again."

"How?"

"She has a new vessel. A box of some sort. It doesn't matter what. She has to lure it to her and trap it inside. Then she'll bury it and it'll be contained again."

"She's using Brittany as bait, to lure the evil to her so she can work the spell. And you helped her.
You sonuvabitch!"

Myer winced and fingered his side. "I'm bleeding. If I die, you'll be charged with murder."

"Too bad for both of us," Ethan said. "Are you telling the truth about the motel?"

"I swear. Look—I'm sorry about the little girl. It has to be her. It's a risk. But if we don't take the chance, then other kids will die. You want that on your conscience?
Because I sure as hell don't."

The motel sign loomed ahead of them.

"Give Lilian the chance, Ethan. It's the only one we've got. Let her work the spell. I swear, I won't press charges. I'll say I was cleaning my gun and it went off. The evil will be contained and it'll all be over."

"Shut up," Ethan said. With the motel in sight he swerved onto the shoulder and stopped. "Get out."

"Here? I'll bleed to death before I get to a hospital!"

"The sheriff will be along in a few minutes. Get out!"

Myer yanked the door handle and slid out onto the road. He was still edging out of the car when Ethan hit the accelerator and tore off for the motel.

* * *

Ward Unger, the motel manager, was adamant about not revealing any information about the motel's clients. Flo had been right—he wasn't quite right in the head. He had the moral obstinance of a child who'd had a lesson drummed into his head and couldn't make a nuanced choice to adjust it when required, as when a gun was pointed at his head. He held out longer than a smarter person would have. He gave in when Ethan shot the motel television. An old tube-type model, it exploded with an impressive flash. Ward Unger shouted out, "Room Sixteen! Room Sixteen!" He handed over the key.

As much as he wanted to kick the door down, Ethan held himself back. He listened at the door briefly before inserting the key. He clicked the door open,
then shoved it wide.

"Hello, Ethan," Miss
Lilian said.

Ethan scanned the room with the pistol. The tableau was nothing like what he expected.

The twin beds had been pushed to the walls. Brittany lay in one of them, a sheet pulled up to her chin, and slept quietly. A small candle, a version of the ones they'd found at Cat's, burned on the nightstand next to her.

Miss
Lilian sat in a plastic chair against one wall. In the center of the room, on another plastic chair, sat Sam Morse Sr. He cradled a wooden box in his lap. Surrounding him on the shag carpeting sat various innocuous but enigmatic items—a small cloth bag not much larger than a tea bag, tied with twine; the skull of a mouse; three twigs of equal length, arranged perpendicularly; a stone carved with a symbol or hieroglyph that Ethan couldn't quite make out; a feather from the wing of a hawk; an old square nail; other items Ethan didn't take time to catalog. Ordinary things, in another context, now made portentous by sinister design.

"Put out the candle," Ethan said. Sam and Miss
Lilian might have been safe from its effects, as apparently she and Myer had been, but Ethan wasn't.

"Are you sure you want to do that? When the evil comes for her—and it will—do you really want her aware of all that goes on?"

"Blow it out."

Miss
Lilian got up and walked over to the nightstand. She snuffed the candle out with her fingertips. She returned to her seat.

"It will come for her," Miss
Lilian said. "Here, we can protect her from it, to the extent such a thing is possible. Take her from here and you doom her, and who knows how many other children.

"This thing, this evil, is insane, Ethan. It's been maddened by a quarter-century's imprisonment under the earth. It has to be returned to the earth. Don't you see that?"

"Why couldn't you protect Brittany at home? Why kidnap her and bring her here?"

"Please, Ethan, be reasonable. What mother would let her child serve as bait for a killer? She'd want to run, to leave the state, leave the country, thinking she was saving her child. But it wouldn't do any good. The evil would find her, it would take her
. Then it would kill again and again until someone like me happened to be in just the right spot with just the right preparations to contain it. And what are the chances of that?

"Brittany is the only hope all those victims have. It will come for her. It's drawn by the blood ties. After Brittany, there's no predicting who it will take."

Sam Morse Sr. held up the wooden box.

"We can contain it, in this," he said, "just like Lil's mother and I contained it in the statue. Then we'll bury it so deep
nobody'll ever dig it up."

The sound of distant sirens eased into their ears. Miss
Lilian sighed.

"Oh, Ethan," she said, "what have you done?"

Ethan's ring tone sounded. He clicked on his phone. It was Heather.

"We're almost there," she said. "Sammy found Myer on the side of the road. He said you shot him."

"He's telling the truth. He was right about the motel, too. I've got them here. Brittany's safe."

"Thank God!"

"Somehow I don't think God's a part of this particular equation."

Ethan's phone received another call. He flashed over. It was Sammy.

"Ethan. Where are you?"

"Motel.
Room sixteen. I've got 'em, Sammy. Brittany's safe. I'm here with Miss Lilian and guess-who."

"My dad."

"You got it. They're preparing a ritual, luring the evil in with Brittany as bait."

"I thought this 'evil' burned up with Digger Walsh."

"It wasn't burned up, it was freed. At least, that's the theory. Anyway, I'm holding them here."

"Look—you're
gonna face charges for shootin' Myer and takin' him hostage. But if you don't shoot nobody else, there's a chance we can get the charges reduced. If things turn out okay, you understand? If nobody else gets hurt? Let us handle it from here."

The sirens drew nearer.

Ethan heard murmuring in the room. He looked over to see Miss Lilian reading urgently from a small, palm-sized book, like a prayer book. She spoke with the cadence of a liturgy, but the words made no sense. They weren't Latin or any language that Ethan recognized.

Sam Morse Sr. sat rigidly in the chair in the middle of the room. He clutched the wooden box tight. Meeting Ethan's stare, he swiveled his eyes to the ceiling over Brittany's bed. Ethan looked up.

Clinging to the ceiling over the sleeping child was a black flame, roiling and circling. A low rushing sound issued from it, like the sibilant roar of a gas jet.

Outside, the sirens grew loud and then fell silent. Ethan flattened himself against the narrow wall between the window and the open doorway. He peered out. Sammy's deputies were taking up positions in the parking lot. The FBI, concentrated at Digger Walsh's compound, wouldn't arrive for another half hour.

The police cruisers circled room sixteen. Deputies emerged with guns drawn. Sammy was treating it like a hostage situation with Ethan as the armed madman.

Sammy yelled from the parking lot. "Come out, Ethan, with your hands in the air. Hold the gun by two fingers. Don't make any sudden moves. My men are instructed to shoot if they feel threatened."

"You'd better hold off, Sammy," Ethan shouted back. "It's happening."

"What is?"

"It's here." Ethan heard the shakiness in his voice. "I think you'd better see this!"

"I'm
comin' in!" Sammy shouted.

Ethan caught a glimpse of Sammy arguing with Lew Carlyle. Sammy said something that made his
chief deputy back off, hands in front of his chest. Sammy repeated, "I'm coming in!" In a few seconds he was at the motel room door.

"Jesus—" he said, looking in.

The black fire had spread to cover the ceiling of the room where it swirled and raged.

"What the hell is it?" Sammy said.

"The evil. Evil made manifest."

"My evil," Sam Sr. said. "Stay back, son. Don't screw this up."

Sammy gestured toward Miss Lilian, reciting more quickly now, sweat beaded on her forehead. "What's
she
up to?"

"Working a spell.
It's supposed to put the evil in that box."

"Is it
workin'?"

"I don't think so."

Ethan jumped at the touch of a hand on his shoulder. Heather.

Sammy cursed when he saw her. How did she get past his deputies?

"That's it, isn't it?" she said, breathless. "That's the thing that killed me."

She stared at the roiling
fire as if hypnotized. As she watched, it reached a black, fiery tendril down toward Brittany. The tendril circled above the sleeping girl, teasing. Miss Lilian flipped a page in the book and spoke faster and louder. The evil coiled back like a cobra preparing to strike.

Heather stepped forward. Against Ethan
’s and Sammy's attempts to hold her back, she approached the evil. She called out to it.

"Hey, asshole," she said, "look who's back!"

The evil continued to swirl. It threw out bursts of black flame that sizzled and hissed over Heather's head.

"Remember me? Thought you'd killed me, didn't you? But here I am. Want to take another shot?"

The black flame roared and danced along the ceiling. It was a monstrous black miasma that stank of death, a fire that burned without consuming, that raged and roared over their heads. It seemed to gather first over Heather, then over Brittany, swirling in confusion between one and the other.