The body behind this panel was a woman’s. Her clothing looks similar enough to the man’s, but she’s got some kind of slippers on her feet. Her wound is more obvious, but more vicious. The skin in the middle of her forehead has been chewed away, with tooth marks on her exposed skull.
It takes another quarter of an hour to reveal them all. Five other bodies buried in the walls, seven in all. Three women, four men, all similar in body and dress, all with bite marks on different parts of their bodies. They have a very disturbing commonality, though, and it doesn’t take me long to pin it down.
“Native Americans?” Lisa asks, a bit nastily, when they’re all uncovered. She’s dirty and sweating and has mentioned a growing headache. She’s still wearing her sunglasses for Hollett’s sake, but it’s giving her eyestrain.
“Looks like it,” I say. “We’d need an anthropologist to tell us specifics.”
“DeLong, their wounds,” Hollett says.
“I noticed,” I tell him.
“Noticed what?” Lisa asks.
I start with the furthest victim to my left. “His wound is on the crown of his head.” I point to the next one. “Hers is on the forehead.” I go on, one by one. “The throat, the heart, the solar plexus, the sacral and the root.”
“The chakras,” she says, getting it.
“Exactly. The energy centers of our bodies.”
“That means something to you, obviously. Care to fill me in?”
“Celeste was bitten in her solar plexus. Nariko got it in the sacral, down on her belly. We saw victims take bites to the crown and the throat. The kiovores attack the chakras.”
“But these people weren’t bitten by a kiovore,” Hollett points out. “The tooth marks don’t look anything like theirs.”
“You’re half right,” I tell him. “These people were victims of the kiovore. Before he turned himself into a kiovore.”
Silence as deep as the Earth.
“It lived here,” Lisa whispers.
“He lived here. Whoever he was, he was human then.”
“He must have been an adept,” Hollett says. “He found the cave with the ley seal in it, recognized it for what it was and moved in.”
“But he didn’t make the seal?”
“I doubt it. The stonework on the seal isn’t anything like the carvings and writings on the walls here or at the barn. This is only a guess, but I think that somehow he found the spring and recognized it for what it was, so he set up shop around it, keeping it dry and livable. After that he found a spell or a rite of some kind to change himself, and feeding on these people’s chakras was one step of it.”
“Are you sure about all this?” Hollett asks.
“No, I’m not sure. Maybe these people were already dead and walled up when he moved in. Maybe just living right on top of a ley spring for too long did it accidentally, or hell, maybe I’m wrong about it altogether. I don’t think I am, though. We’ll probably never know for sure, but it doesn’t matter anyway. But I am sure that, before it was defeated and imprisoned in that other cave, the kiovore lived here.”
“And that means that it’ll come back here,” Hollett says, looking pleased. “And when it does, we can kill it.”
“Once we figure out how,” I agree. “That’s the next step.”
Lisa turns the lantern off and we head for the stairs. Once we’re above ground cell service kicks back in and my phone immediately rings. I fumble the annoying thing out of my pocket and listen as the small voice buzzes in my ear for a moment. I listen carefully for half a minute, excitement rising.
“I’ll be right there,” I say, and hang up.
“Who was that?” Lisa asks.
“Adam Farelli,” I tell her.
“What did he want?”
“I’ll explain on the way.” I jump in the Jeep and start the engine.
“Where are we going?” Lisa asks as she struggles with her seat belt.
I smile, backing out of the parking spot and screeching into the street. “We’re going to the movies.”
Twenty-One
Superstition Bay only has one full-scale mall, a fractured amoeba of a building on Greene Street, and the mall holds the town’s only movie theater. It only boasts eight screens, but I can’t see why a town this size would need more. Then again, I might not be the best judge. Before Lisa I hadn’t been to the movies in six years.
We pull up in front of the Cineplex at ten minutes to nine. There are only two other cars here, since the theater doesn’t open for two more hours yet and it doesn’t share front space with any other stores. I don’t know who owns the silver Hyundai, but the blue Escort is Adam Farelli’s. We get out of the Jeep, skin crinkling in the cool morning air in a pleasant contrast to the gentle warmth of the new sun.
Adam Farelli is standing by the theater’s heavy glass doors. It’s clear he didn’t expect Hollett to be arriving with me, and equally clear that he thinks I’m insane for bringing Lisa along with me. I have to give him credit, though, he doesn’t mention my partners.
“Is there really one in there?” I ask as soon as we’re within earshot.
He gives me a fleshy nod, falling in next to me and ushering us into the building. The lobby lights are at full power, making the large cardboard standees and mounted posters cast angular shadows down the walls. A single person, a guy in his early twenties with stringy, bleached blond hair and a red polyester vest is standing behind the concession stand, eating popcorn from a carton decorated with scenes from a new animated holiday movie and watching us uncomfortably. “Lee, the morning manager,” Adam indicates the kid at the snack bar, “almost got jumped when he went in to set up for the day. He’s not Grey, though, so it went past him and ducked into a theater.”
“You’re lucky,” I tell Lee. “You made a good call, staying out of its way.”
“Like I was going to mess with that thing.” He scratches his beard, looking at me sideways. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
I shrug. “Well, I live here in town, but I…”
“No, I mean I’ve seen you someplace before.” He snaps his fingers. “I saw you on line.”
“What? What do you…”
“That video, where the werewolf jumps that red monster thing. You were there, right? I saw you in the background.”
I can’t stop a groan. I’d allowed myself to forget about Gault’s newfound internet celebrity, but it’s all come back now. “Don’t believe everything you see,” I tell him.
“In this town, you’d be a fool to.”
Hmm. For a non-Grey, this guy is pretty aware. Wonder how many other so-called ‘normal’ people here know more than they let on. “How do you know it hasn’t gotten out? The mall’s right here.” I point at a row of glass doors that lead into the dimly lit mall. “It could be anywhere by now.”
“It’s in there, all right. The only way out of the theater it went into is the emergency exit, and that leads into an exterior loading dock. Hollett here told me last night these things don’t like the light, so I had the manager fire up all the lights in the lobby and hallways and he’s been watching out for it ever since. It’s still in there.”
“Then it’s trapped,” Hollett says. “Perfect. We can kill it without endangering anyone else.”
“How?” Farelli asks.
“I’ll just stone it,” Lisa says.” End of problem.”
“Will your stare work in the dark? We don’t know how much these things rely on their eyes.”
She opens her mouth to argue, thinks it over and closes it again. She’s unsure.
I’ve kept out of the discussion up until this point, rolling the problem around in my mind and looking for inspiration. I find one. Nothing near where I’d been looking for it, but it’s a great, shining sword of an inspiration that can’t be ignored.
“Hold on,” I say. They all stop and look at me expectantly, waiting for my grand idea so I let it drop.
“We can’t kill it.”
Three sets o
f eyes google at me. True, Lisa’s eyes are still hidden by her sunglasses, but I can tell by her suddenly slack face that she is, in fact, googling. Hollett thinks I have a head injury, and Adam’s just about to fall on his ponderous ass.
“Why the hell not?” he asks, blankly but reasonably.
“What if they’re not lost? The people, the victims who’ve been changed. What if it’s not permanent?”
Hollett is staring holes in me, but I can’t read his expression. Adam and Lisa look at each other. I’m sure they’re each waiting for the other to call me crazy. I call their attention back to me.
“Guys, what if they can be changed back?”
“You want to cure the monsters?” Hollett looks at me like I have centipedes crawling out of my mouth. “You’ve changed, DeLong.”
“How exactly do you figure you can do that?” Adam demands.
“I don’t know,” I admit. I start pacing in tight circles as the thought of a cure begins to burn in my mind.
“We don’t even know how the condition passes to the victims except that it’s through the bite,” Hollett points out. “It could be magical, or it could be biological. Hell, it could be both.”
I snap my fingers. “We need a doctor. I’ll check with Doctor Laveau down at the Clinic. He’s perfect.”
None of them know who I’m talking about. Lisa hasn’t been in town long enough to need a doctor like Laveau and there’s no reason Adam should have dealt with him before now, but I’m surprised the Reeses haven’t at least mentioned him to Hollett. I wave them off with impatience. “Never mind, I’ll explain later.”
“I’ll take my explanation now, if you don’t mind.” Hollett sounds pissed. “If you expect me to try not to kill this thing I want to know why.”
“Doctor Laveau’s Clinic doesn’t have a formal name since it doesn’t formally exist, but this town couldn’t exist without it. He’s a Johns Hopkins graduate who also claims to be a descendant of Marie Catherin Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans in the 1800’s. I’ve never seen fit to question him on that score, but I’ve seen him do things with both magic and medicine that make me believe it. He has a private care clinic in his home which he uses to treat Greys who need care that can’t go to regular doctors. If anyone can figure out something like this, it’s him.”
“So, he’s literally a witch doctor.”
“Well… yes. I never actually thought of it that way, but yes.”
They’re silent for a moment, then Hollett says, “I don’t know if I’m starting to love this town or hate it.”
“So, just to be clear, you want us to capture this thing?” Adam looks queasy. “And may I ask how?”
“Call some more people,” Lisa suggests. “Dog-pile it, break it down to the point where it can’t stop us from moving it.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want a war in the mall. Besides, it only takes a couple of seconds for one of them to put the bite on somebody. Then we’ve just gotten someone else infected and added to their numbers. No, I’m not giving it a crack at anyone else.”
“Okay then. What do we do?”
I wish I could ask someone questions once in a while. I pace the lobby, trying to jump start my brain. Come on. Come on. I’ve walked the earth of every continent fighting monsters. I’ve seen things that would make horror novelists and filmmakers black out from fear and beaten them all. I know I can do this. I can find a way to take a nearly invulnerable monster, who we don’t want to kill anyway, all the way across town through the daylight it hates and without exposing anyone else to its danger.
Hates daylight. Okay, let’s start there. We need to get it across town without exposing it to the light or, judging by the reactions of every other nocturnal creature I’ve had to deal with, it’ll either die or go batshit and probably be beyond hope of containing. That means we need something that’ll keep the light out…
“Adam, the SBPD has transport vans, right?”
“Most PD’s do.”
“And they’re strong? Reinforced?”
“Of course. Why?”
“We get one of them here and find a way to get it into the back. Lock it up tight, and there’s our answer.”
“Won’t work,” he comes right back at me. “Our vans have louvers over the bars on the windows. They’ll restrict light, but still plenty will get in.”
“So, we’ll cover them on the outside with garbage bags and tape them off. Black them out. Can you get one?”
“I think so. As long as Captain Bayle doesn’t take a personal interest in why I’m borrowing it.”
“Talk fast.”
“Can do. I’ll be right back.” He heads for the door, wobbling like an off-balance cannonball.
“How long?” I call after him.
“Half an hour, forty-five minutes,” he calls back, then he’s out the door. Once he’s gone Lisa wheels on me.
“And how exactly are we supposed to get it in a van? Lure it in with candy?”
“I’m still working on that part,” I admit.
“Hey,” Lee calls out meekly. I’d forgotten that he was even there, he’d faded so completely into the background.
“What?” I snap, harder than I’d intended.
“Remember, we open at eleven.”
“Not today, you don’t. Lee, I need you to get on the phone and tell everyone not to come in today. Tell ‘em there’s a gas leak or something. Just make sure they stay home, right? Tell ‘em they’ll get full pay for the day, that’ll seal the deal.”
“But… who’s going to pay them? Company policy says…”
Lord, save me from the simpletons. I give him an avuncular shoulder pat. “Don’t worry about it, Lee. I’ll fix that up later. Just make sure nobody comes anywhere near this place today.”
“Yeah, right,” the boy says, wandering away from us with his head bent over his phone.
Twenty-Two
It’s actually close to an hour before Adam gets back, backing the heavy black van up to the theater doors. Even though the mall doesn’t open for another hour, small groups of people are beginning to gather in the parking lot, keeping a reasonable space between them and the theater but clearly hooked on the unusual goings-on on top of, or maybe in spite of, last night’s attacks.
Before he gets out of the cab Adam flicks on the red and blue strobes, which is both blessing and curse; the lights will serve to attract more attention but at the same time instill a modicum of caution in the bystanders and hopefully make them keep their distance at the same time. The shocks sigh in relief as he heaves his way down to the sidewalk and he and Lisa get busy blacking out the windows. I want to help, but there’s no way I’m moving away from this door.
Every once in a while, I can hear it moving around in the dark theater. A shuffling footstep. A folded seat swinging on noisy springs after being nudged. Not much, and never far from my door. It wants no part of the emergency exit. It must sense the daylight outside.
In no time they finish light proofing the van through liberal applications of duct tape and black spray paint. By the time they’re done it’s as dark inside as a cave in winter. Though I’d never tell them, a small part of me wouldn’t have minded if they took longer. The memories of what the kiovores can do are all too vivid, and just in case I forget there’s a beautiful spiral-shaped scar pattern on my right shoulder to remind me.
As I’ve done countless times before, I wonder if this fight will be the one I don’t walk away from. I have no illusions. My hypothetical retirement didn’t take me out of the fight, just narrowed the size of the ring. The fight will continue, maybe until my last day. I’ve lived this long by being better than my enemies. Faster, smarter, cleverer. But one day I won’t be good enough, fast enough, smart enough, clever enough, and despite the rush the tea provided I’m all too aware of the fact that physically I’ve started down the inevitable slow road to decline.
Then I see Lisa walking towards me, detouring slightly to toss an empty spray paint can in the ga
rbage and I feel a slight, but steady, surge of determination. I won’t know when my last fight will be until it’s too late, but when I do go I sure as hell won’t make it easy. Not as long as I have someone like her waiting for me.
“I think you’re supposed to recycle those,” I tell her.
“Adam, write me a ticket,” she says.
“I’ll get right on that,” Adam says dryly.
“Did you finish working on the plan?” she asks me.
I take a breath. This isn’t going to go over well. “You have anything like that little chain whip you used at the Reese house last night?”
He nods slowly.
“Okay. This is the only door to the theater,” I tell them. “Except for an emergency exit in the lower left corner. We’re going to back the truck up to the front door. Hollett lassos the kiovore with his magic chain and hurls it into the back. There’s one problem, though.”
“The kiovore will be all over him the moment he steps in there,” Adam says.
“Exactly.”
“I hope your plan doesn’t end there,” Hollett says. He’s holding back whatever it is he’s feeling, and the effort must be herculean.
“No, it doesn’t.” I can’t meet Lisa’s eyes. She’s not going to like this. “Hollett takes position by the entrance doors. Once he’s is in place I’m going in through the emergency exit. I go in and distract it. When it’s focused on me Hollett does his Wonder Woman act, boxes it up and we get the hell out of here.”
Three people stare at me with the expressions usually reserved for bear baiters. I’d have bet money on Lisa being the one to break the crystalline silence, but it’s Lee of all people who speaks up.
“Man, are you fucking crazy?” he says.
“If you have to ask that after the conversation we’ve just been having then you haven’t been paying attention. Let me have the key to the exterior door.”
No More Devils: A Visit to Superstition Bay Page 20