The Templar's Legacy (Ancient Enemy) (42 page)

I crossed my arms and tried to think it through. If
we used
someone already brain-dead, then what was the harm, other than freaking out that person
'
s relatives?
The legal and moral choices here were murky at best, but Mark was right. We needed to know.

“Okay, but we have to make sure that the person doesn't have any chance of waking on their own, or have any relatives.”

“Everyone has relatives, Finn.”

“
You know what I mean. No one who visits them regularly.”

“That is just basic sense Finn.”

“Okay, but I want to be there when you question her.”

“I was planning on it.”

“So, now we just need to find someone to try it on.”

“We've already got him.”

That startled me.

“Him?”

He nodded. “Him. Putting Il Saia into a male body will disorient her. Our goal is to keep her off balance enough that she won't be able to resist... our persuasion.”

This One, did you catch that?

Yep.
I shivered internally. What was Mark truly capable of?

“I'll call you when we are ready for you to do the transfer.”

“Jen's got the second crystal.”

“I don't want to put it through the mail. Can you ask her to bring it with her when she comes out to visit?”

Of course he knew about her visit. I talked about it often enough.

I nodded and said, “Sure.”

“Good. I've got some other appointments tonight, so we'll talk details later.”

“Mark?” I asked. “Why didn't you want Dave here for this?”

He shrugged. “Habit, I suppose.”

“So it's okay if I tell him?”

“I assumed you would if you were comfortable with his reaction to this.”

“He'll want to be in charge of the water dribbling.”

Mark humphed a short laugh. “He might at that.”

And he'd be joking,
added Spring.

True.
To say it charitably, my friend was tactless.

Completely sans class,
said Spring.

I had to agree again.

What are we going to tell Jen?

She'd been the one possessed, or over-written, by Il Saia the first time, so I'm sure she would have some strong opinions on the subject. I briefly considered keeping her in the dark, but I knew I couldn't do it.

We'll just have to tell her and hope for the best,
I replied.

The best? What is this 'best' you talk about?

I don't know, but I've heard it happens to some people. Apparently, it revolves around the idea of something not going wrong.

Excerpt
–
The Devil Made Me Do It

The Devil's Mark #1

Rescue Me

A thousand horrible things, enhanced by the spooky decrepitude of the house, ran through Max’s head, and adrenalin surged into his system. He jumped through the open front door and ran across to his car. His original half-thought had been to get in the car and leave at high-speed and never return. But, as he hopped into his car, he caught himself. “It just wouldn't do to have someone else find your surprise...before it rots...” His heart pounded, his breathing came in rapid gasps, and his filthy hands shook like an old man's. He consciously took a few slow, deep breaths to try to calm down and think things through.

What could have caused that thumping? Vague visions of monsters from the depths of hell presented themselves first. Those had caused his panicked flight. The more he thought about it, the sillier it seemed. A conversation he’d had with Lucian, over too many single malt scotches, played itself back in his mind.

***

Lucian waved his hand drunkenly. “Bah! Ghosts! You monkeys have way too much imagination!”

“But, you tell me yourself that we have souls,” pointed out Max, trying to think around the comfortable cushion of scotch that his brain was reclining on.

“Yes, yes, that's different. The whole concept of ghosts is ridiculous. Your soul is part of The Divine. It is the breath of life, the animus of all things. It is clothed in your little mud bodies because this world could not stand the direct touch of it. Its connection to you is tenuous, because otherwise it would destroy you. The soul animates you but is not part of you. Unlike your little mud bodies, your soul survives your death, since it is immortal and perfect. It is pure hubris, which may I point out, you are remarkably adept at, to think that your tiny brains and thoughts could have any impact on it.”

At this point, Lucian poured out the last two fingers of scotch into his glass and gulped it down. He let out a satisfied sigh. “No, my little protégé, when you die, your soul flees this mortal coil and returns to Him, or Me. Thankfully for Me, there is nothing left of You. No ghosts, no thoughts, no longings, wants, or desires. You are just empty dirt.”

Max looked morosely into his drink. “Wow,” he said slowly. “That sucks.”

Lucian flopped forward, leaned on both arms and looked at Max strangely. He said, “Yep, life's a bitch and then you die.” Meeting Max's gaze, he added, “You lucky bastard.”

***

At the time, that conversation, like so many others with Lucian, had been very disturbing. After a while, though, it became oddly comforting. It was kind of reassuring that the mistakes he had made in his life would just erase themselves. It also helped sooth fears of eternal damnation. Now, for Max, standing in the late afternoon Mississippi sun and heat, it provided another comfort: whatever he had heard in the house, it wasn't some damned soul yearning for life, revenge, or something worse. It had to be something more mundane.

There was no mistaking that the sound had been the house settling or something like that. More likely, it had been one of the party kids. Max tried to think it through. What had Lucian meant about something rotting in the house? Was he was implying that someone was trapped in the house and would soon die? Crap. Max knew he was going to go back into that dark and forlorn place. He couldn't live with himself if there were someone there who needed his help, and he turned his back on them.

Still, the thought of going back into the house scared him. He decided that the flashlight wasn't enough for defense, so he opened up the trunk of his car and pulled out a tire iron. He hefted the bent bar in his hands. The thought of the damage it would do propped up his courage, as he headed back to the house. It hurt to carry the flashlight in his injured hand, but there was no way he was going back in there without both items.

He walked tentatively in through the open front door and looked around. He waited to hear the sound again, but nothing came.

“Hello?” he said into the darkness. Nothing but silence answered him. Feeling bolder, he shouted, “Hello?”

Thump, Thump, Thump, answered his call.

Swallowing his reflexive, unreasoning, fear, he followed the sound into the side room with the large fireplace. He had no clue what it had been called when the house was built, so he just thought of it as the living room. The magnificent fireplace, with its elaborate stonework and ornately carved mahogany mantle, dominated the far wall of the room.

Thump, Thump, Thump. This time the sound was louder and seemed to come from somewhere across the room.

He advanced with the flashlight stretched out in his left hand, sweeping the area in front of him, tire iron at the ready in his right hand. Max crept across the room. “Hello?” he said. “Who's there?”

Thump! Thump! Thump! The sound was now louder and seemed to come from directly in front of him.

Max jumped back in fright with both flashlight and iron pointing to the floor as if they were shotguns. After the initial fright, he realized that someone must be trapped under the floor somehow. There was no way an animal would make such regular sounds.

Thump, Thump, Thump, came again, more softly as if the person, whoever it was, was tiring.

“I'm here!” shouted Max. “I'll help you get out!” Suddenly, Max knew, beyond a doubt, that he was here to save this poor soul trapped under the floor. Here was a chance to begin offsetting some of the wrongs he had wrought. Here was a chance to prove that he still had value and a chance to redeem himself.

Max searched around the floor and saw something that had escaped him when he was in the room before. Part of the floor, near the center of the room, sagged down. It looked like a supporting beam had given way. The thumping came again in what seemed the center of the sag.

Max used his feet to clear away dirt and debris from the area and uncovered a part of the floor that seemed to be disconnected from the rest. A trap door had been worked into the flooring. Undoubtedly, it had been less obvious before the flood. He looked for handles or some way to move the section of the floor but found nothing. Finally, he put the flashlight down, and he took the flat end of the tire iron and wedged it into one of the cracks. He pushed down on the tire iron, and the three foot by four-foot section of floor seemed to move as one piece. He wedged his lever in deeper and pushed harder, but the section didn't do much but flex. He pushed harder and then started standing on the bar. He jumped on the bar twice before the board he had been working on gave a crack and came free spilling Max onto the floor.

The board left a dark hole behind. Max crawled over to the hole to find the fetid and rotting smell which pervaded the house was much stronger here. It was rising through the opening. He breathed through his mouth and showed his light into the hole. He shouted “Hello?”

Again, the thumping answered him, this time louder. Someone was trapped down there. The light shining through the small hole didn't show him anything meaningful, but something down there reflected his light.

Quickly Max started prying up the other boards. Soon, he had enough of a hole that he could look into the space below. The reflecting surface was black water about four feet down from the level of the floor and seemed to be the source of the foul smell. A large floor beam had half fallen into the water. Its submerged end quickly disappeared in the murky depths. Under that beam was the top of what looked like a long mahogany chest. The chest was seemingly pinned in place by the fallen beam.

Max shouted again. He was answered by two weaker thumps from the chest.

Max's blood ran cold as a scenario played itself out in his head. Someone had locked a person into the chest and then left them there. He thought of the various serial killers or kidnapping movies he had seen and panicked at the thought of the perpetrator returning, finding him here and treating him the same way. He had to work fast. He attacked the floor with the crowbar.

After prying up the fourth board, the rest of the trap door came free, and with difficulty, he was able to slide the heavy square of wood aside.

With the door out of the way, he looked down into a rectangular area that seemed to be walled with some sort of concrete. It was larger than the trap door, maybe six feet by four feet, and was filled with the rank black water. The top of the chest, itself about five and a half feet by maybe two or three feet wide, looked disturbingly like a coffin. It was obvious that whoever was making the noise was trapped in that box. In order to get it open, he had to get the beam off of it.

It was also clear that he would not be able to move that beam from where he stood, even though the end of the beam rested within reach at the edge of the concrete pit. He steeled his courage, gritted his teeth, girded his loins, and then lowered himself down into the fetid liquid. Even though it made his skin crawl, the coolness of the water was a welcome change from the oppressive heat. When his feet touched bottom, the water came up to his waist. It smelled even worse now that he was bathing in it.

Swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, he went to work on the beam. He placed his flashlight on the edge of the concrete pit. It didn't provide much illumination, but it was his only option. In the rank darkness, it took him a half hour of grunting and sweating and pushing to inch the beam off the chest. It fell with a splash, covering him with even more of the noisome stuff. He wanted to rest, to take a shower, to be anywhere but here, but worry spurred him on. It had been a while since the person in the box had made any noise. He couldn't stand it if he arrived just too late. He went to the chest and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge, so he felt around and found a seam just under the water level. Frantically, he inserted his tire iron into the seam and leveraged it open. To his satisfaction, the top of the chest moved. He got his fingers into the gap and heaved. The top turned out to be a hinged lid, and he was able to force it open with a grinding creak.

As he opened the lid, he could see that the chest was filled with the same vile, black water that surrounded it. The smell reached a new pitch, and he started gagging, as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. There was nothing but the water. There was no person trapped within. Just thick, black, nasty, polluted water.

He continued pushing open the lid and was thus leaning over it when the corpse floated to the surface of the water. First, its pale white head became visible. The flesh of the face was bloated and distorted with rips and tears as if it were too weak to support its own weight. The eyes were milky white and lidless. The rest of the body was a white suggestion of horror below the water.