by steve higgs
When the door swished open to reveal the body on the floor, my heart had stopped for a moment as my paranoid brain told me it was going to be Tempest’s face that I saw. It wasn’t though, it was someone else. I grimaced at the task but got on my knees to examine him even though I really didn’t want to. It struck me as ironic that now I had quit the police, I saw dead bodies far, far more regularly than I ever had before.
The man was big and when I say big, I mean like Big Ben big. Crumpled on the floor it was hard to estimate his height, but it was well over six feet and he was very blocky. I patted for a wallet, found one and opened it to find the name I expected to see.
‘It’s Brian Carruthers,’ I announced.
‘The man who’s supposed to be in the monster suit?’ Mary asked.
I nodded. ‘That’s the one.’
‘So who is in the monster suit?’ asked Patience.
I had no answer for her. I carried on looking at the body. Brian was staring sightlessly out of the elevator, one hand covering his chest as if to protect it and the other lying limply next to him. There was no sign of violence. If it wasn’t for his open eyes, I might have assumed he had gone to sleep. He was quite dead though, his skin cold to the touch and no trace of a pulse to be had. I performed a cursory check, Patience bustling into the car to help me. When we got to his neck, we found the tell-tale signs of strangulation. We had both seen these on women who survived domestic abuse, so we were sure what we were looking at.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Patience.
She tilted her head slightly as she considered her answer. ‘I think he was killed by the monster. Or, at least by whoever is now in the monster suit because I prefer the idea that there is a person inside it than the monster is real.’
I wriggled my lips around a little in thought. ‘The coroners will confirm it. We should get the others and get back to the surface. Maybe there we will find some answers.’ I stood up, turning around to find Tempest’s dad holding out his dinner jacket. I didn’t get it for a second, but he was offering it so I could drape it over Brian’s body. No one would want to ride the elevator with his sightless eyes staring at their bum.
With it in place, I touched Michael’s arm in thanks. ‘I’ll be right back. Don’t go up without us; we have no idea what might be happening up there.’
‘Super,’ grumbled Mary. ‘Just the confidence boost I hoped for. Now we can escape here and get killed by someone up there.’
With her moaning whine fading behind me, Patience and I made our way back to the library. I asked Big Ben to stay with them, just in case because whatever else I believed, I was certain there was a killer loose.
‘How’s your phone battery?’ Patience asked, traipsing along behind me in the dark, both of us relying on my torch to see.
‘Four percent and fading fast. Ah, make that three percent.’ We both knew we needed to get to the surface soon or risk the entire group running out of light.
Frank’s voice cut through the quiet as we approached the library, stepping around Kevin’s body where he too lay with a jacket over him. ‘How’s the circle looking?’ he asked someone just as we came into the room.
The library was a hive of activity, everyone doing something except Dr Parrish, who, in deference to his injury, was sitting on the table which they had lowered back down to floor level. The books which had been boosting it into the air were now stacked neatly on top, the neatness the result of the task being performed by academics no doubt. Dr Parrish, I noticed, wasn’t looking very good. He was upright when he probably ought to be lying flat with his legs elevated and his wound still wasn’t dressed. Dressing it wouldn’t do much to stem the outflow of blood slowly leaking from his abdomen, but it would help.
Lily and Narcissus were crouched on the floor, doing something to the circle with their backs to us. Before I could ask Dr Parrish how he felt, Narcissus swung her head to answer Frank’s question. ‘It might hold. That’s the best I can offer. We really need a crucible to melt the silver so all we can do is stuff it in as hard as we can and hope it holds. It will connect the circle but I don’t know if we need to disguise it so the demon cannot spot the weak point.’
Dr Parrish winced as he tried to see what they were talking about. ‘You know what happens if the circle breaks, don’t you?’
‘I don’t,’ said Gina.
Frank pulled a face. ‘Well, if it breaks after we call the demon but before we trap it, we will find ourselves trapped in a tight space with an enraged creature from hell who would like nothing better on his toast for supper than our kidneys.’
‘Whoa, that’s gross,’ Patience complained while making a gagging noise. ‘You are one nasty little man.’
Frank did a good job of painting the picture, but they could dispense with all this nonsense now. ‘We got the elevator working,’ I announced. ‘We can get to the surface now and get out of the house. I’m sure that’s welcome news for everyone.’ Eleven sets of eyes looked back at me, none of the faces attached to them reciprocating my smile.
‘We’re nearly ready,’ said Professor Wiseman. ‘Can you wait a few minutes?’ My mouth fell open. Was he kidding me?
‘Actually, I have some bad news.’ The latest announcement came from Tempest’s dad as he filed into the room with his wife and Big Ben. ‘The elevator operates with a key code. Probably four digits but I don’t know. Without that, it doesn’t matter what I do to the electrics, it isn’t going anywhere.’
Now I remembered watching Travis put a code into a keypad when we first boarded it. Yet again, we were defeated, stuck in the basement with no way out.
Big Ben asked, ‘How about I go through the access panel in the top of the elevator and climb up the cable to the next level?’
‘Are you Bruce Willis now?’ asked Patience. Then she cast her eyes to Tempest’s dad. ‘Would that work?’
‘Doubtful,’ he replied. ‘Elevator cables are actually quite greasy. Two movement things running over each other constantly, a bit of greasy is necessary.’
I filed that away for future reference. And turned to face the ailing man at the table. ‘Dr Parrish, you must know the code for the elevator.’
‘Yes, I… I, um.’ He looked at me and I could see he was about to faint before he did, his hand slipping along the table as he lost consciousness and folded into himself. I couldn’t get to him in time, and neither could anyone else, the wounded fool refusing aid until his condition worsened. Now his blood loss was at the point where he was out cold. We wouldn’t get him back either, not without medical treatment. This was bad, the level of urgency just went up a notch. I tried to revive him so we could get the code at least, but he was unconscious; his pallor and thready pulse telling me we weren’t about to hear the elevator code from him.
‘We have to get him to the surface,’ I said, my voice unwavering in case someone felt like arguing.
Frank looked about. ‘No one else has the code for the elevator.’ Patience came to her knees next to me and started rummaging through Dr Parrish’s pockets. ‘What are you doing?’ Frank asked.
Patience flipped her eyes up at him. ‘I’m searching for his Starbucks loyalty card.’ Lily gasped and Frank drew in a breath to argue, but she got there first. ‘I’m looking for his phone and wallet, dummies. I can never remember all the codes in my life, so I keep them hidden on my phone. This one’s twenty years older than me, so he might have them on a note in his wallet but if he has the code for the elevator written down, I bet we can find it.’ Triumphantly she produced his phone from an inner jacket pocket and then routed around under his butt until her hand reappeared with a wallet. With a quiet, ‘Ta-dah!’ she tossed the wallet in the air, so I had to catch it while she started fiddling with his phone. ‘Fingerprint lock,’ she explained as she grabbed his hand to open the screen.
‘I still think we have to try to capture the monster,’ said Frank to a chorus of agreement and approval from the witches and the academics. ‘We can all fit inside the
circle; it’s big enough. The demon trap is set, we have a beetle to use as a sacrifice, so we are ready to go. All that remains is to invoke the sigil and call his name.’
I wasn’t ready to move yet, the contents of the wallet failing to yield any codes jotted on a piece of paper, so I waved a disinterested hand in his direction so he could get on with whatever silliness he proposed. While he did that, I closed the wallet and peered over Patience’s arm to see the phone. ‘Anything?’
‘Not yet. His notes app is empty. I guess he hasn’t discovered it yet.’
‘Ready?’ called Frank.
‘Huh?’ I looked up. Patience and I were sitting in the middle of the circle and everyone else was around us, even Tempest’s parents and Big Ben. Frank was on top of the table, bare chested to show a weird symbol drawn on his chest in what appeared to be red lipstick. The same symbol was on his back I saw when he spun in place.
‘Hold on, Frank,’ I started to say but he was in full flow now, his eyes closed as he began shouting incantations.
‘Daemon Quentinaxis obsecro te exibunt Invoco te typicus.’ Was that latin? ‘Quentinaxis Daemonis, infernum immolo tua mutare. Accipe sacrificium transiens.’ Narcissus crushed something in a bowl. I guessed it was the beetle meeting his maker. ‘Daemon Quentinaxis Quaero apparueris mihi.’ This time Hazel stabbed Frank’s outstretched thumb and caught the drops of blood in the same bowl in which the beetle breathed its last.
Nothing happened.
Frank opened one eye and looked about. I tried not to smirk, but Big Ben’s shoulders were shaking in his attempt to keep his laughter under control. Frank opened his other eye. ‘Maybe I did something wrong?’
Gina shrugged at him.
He pushed the flicker of annoyance from his face. ‘Let’s reset and try again. Have you still got the second beetle, Narcissus?’
Narcissus crossed the room to a drawer set into the shelves, opened it and scooped out a beetle with a very short life expectancy. Frank waved his arms with a flourish, waited for Narcissus to get back inside the circle, checked around to make sure everyone was safely inside the silver ring and tried again.
He got the same result.
‘Are we done now?’ asked Big Ben. ‘Not that I didn’t enjoy that. It was quite the show. With some special effects, you could make some money, I’ll bet.’
Frank ignored him, choosing to address those who believed in what he was doing instead. ‘Sorry, folks. Maybe I had the sigil wrong, maybe the name listed in the book isn’t right.’
‘Maybe you’re all mental,’ Big Ben said just about loud enough for them to hear.
I waved for him to be quiet; his comments were just sewing disharmony and I needed everyone to band together because I had an idea. I clicked my finger a few times to get their attention, when that didn’t work, I made to clap my hands, but Patience stuck two fingers on top of her tongue and blew a whistle that almost burst my eardrums.
Now that she had their attention, she said, ‘Amanda wants to say something. Listen up because it will be better than anything the fairy folk have to say.’ She was staring at Frank when she said fairy folk, making sure he knew to keep quiet too.
Now that I was on the spot, I had to say something worthwhile. Fortunately, a plan was forming. ‘Look, we all think the monster is going to come back, right?’ I got a chorus of nods and yesses, all of them curious to see where I was planning to go with my question. ‘Whatever it is,’ I glanced at Patience and Big Ben, imploring them to keep quiet, ‘it is manifesting physically. Maybe the reason your demon trap didn’t work is because it isn’t a demon.’ Frank turned out his bottom lip to show he liked the idea because it meant he hadn’t failed. ‘I propose we create a real trap and lure it in. If it is a man in a suit, which I am pretty sure it is, then we can unmask him and maybe get some answers. How does that sound?’
Demon Trap. Sunday, December 11th 0148hrs
I think it was that no one had any other plan at all, let alone a better plan, that convinced them to concede to mine. Mine was simple enough; we were going to show the monster what he wanted and lure him into the trap with our own bodies. I swear I had seen the same thing done on multiple episodes of Scooby-Doo as a kid and once that thought crept into my head, I couldn’t get the music from the show to stop playing. As I explained what I wanted to build and how we were going to force him into the trap, I was waiting for someone to offer me a Scooby snack.
No one else was on my wavelength though, all of them paying attention and asking questions as I drew out my plan on the surface of the table using a piece of chalk. When I finished, I drew a stick figure of the demon in the trap and a speech bubble with the words, ‘Oh no! They caught me,’ in it.
Everyone stared at it. Patience said, ‘Hmmm.’
‘Come on, let me have it,’ I demanded, knowing she would have some quip to throw at me.
‘I think it will work,’ she replied.
‘Really?’ I was waiting for her punchline.
‘Yeah. It’s the dumbest plan I ever saw, but then I figure the guy in the monster suit must be pretty dumb, so he’ll probably fall for it. Let’s get to work.’
As the group split and started getting on with tasks, I checked on Dr Parrish again. ‘How’s he doing?’ I asked.
Lily had taken it upon herself to care for him; none of us wanted to get on with things and come back to check on him only to discover he was dead. He wasn’t though. She had dressed the wound, something he insisted wasn’t necessary earlier when she first offered, and the blood had mostly stopped leaking out. It could still be leaking inward though there was nothing we could do about that. No matter what, we had to get him out of the basement and into the hands of some paramedics, or he would bleed to death.
Setting up the trap took less than fifteen minutes. When it was done, we all regrouped by the trap itself.
‘Explain this to me again,’ said Frank, eyeing the contraption dubiously.
‘The library is our safe point, right? No one can get in unless they come in through the ceiling and with the mechanism that opened the original entrance broken,’ everyone glanced at Big Ben, ‘we can be sure no one is coming in through there so the only way out of that room is through the tunnel that the monster killed Ronald in. The monster is still down here somewhere moving about and waiting to pick us off, but it hasn’t shown it’s face for a while because we haven’t split up. Now we go out in twos, being super vigilant until one of us draws the monster out. We let it chase us - we are faster because the killer is wearing a heavy and cumbersome suit, and we lead it back to the tunnel that leads to the library. You, Frank, will be in the crawl space again, waiting for the monster to pass under you, at which point you will swing down and close the door, sealing the monster inside. It will then be trapped in just the library and the passageway leading to it. At this point the killer is still armed and not only dangerous but quite willing to kill so then we have to catch it.’
‘That’s where I come in,’ said Big Ben, treating the situation seriously for once. ‘Using grease from the elevator cable, the floor just inside the library will be super slippery. Whoever is being chased, needs to remember to jump it or they might get skewered by our mad monster when he catches up to them. They need to jump it and then get behind the table which will be turned on its side to form a barrier. Bookcases, objects and other things are arranged all along each side to create a funnel. The monster will have to go over the table, unable to see what is on the other side until too late. It lands in the big chest,’ unable to help himself, he grinned at me when he said, “big chest,” ‘and we throw the net you made from the dream catcher string over him so he gets tangled.’
Looking at everyone, one at a time to make eye contact, I asked, ‘Any questions?’
There were none so we split up, Tempest’s parents heading back to the library where they ought to be safe, the elder academics with their beards going with them. Big Ben helped Frank to clamber up into the crawlspace, backing in so he
could see out but would otherwise be invisible. The rest of us split into pairs. Patience with Gina, Big Ben with me, the witches in two twos because Lily stayed with Dr Parrish, and we all went in different directions.
Now we had to endure the least predictable part of the plan, where the monster would show up and who he would chase. Was he even down here still? I had to wonder about that because we hadn’t seen him for a while and if his target, his true target for whatever reason, was Lord Hale, then did he know Lord Hale was no longer down here with us? Maybe he did and we were setting a trap for a monster who had already taken himself upstairs.
It was my bet that he was trapped down here as well. Maybe he had been using the stairs, but we had seen him since Lord Hale locked the door at the top so if there were no other exits, then he was in here with us. It was a spooky thought.
Just at that moment, my phone crapped out and the light from it died. Big Ben turned his on. Thankful that we had some light, I asked, ‘How much battery have you got?’
He peered at his screen. ‘Not much.’ His answer didn’t tell me much, but it didn’t really matter what percentage power it had left. Sooner or later we were going to be stuck below ground with no light source of any kind and no phone signal. We had no way of getting a message out and thus little chance we would be rescued any time soon. That was bad news for all of us. Especially Dr Parrish who would not be afforded the luxury of starving to death if we didn’t deal with his abdominal wound soon.
My dilemma now was that I needed the monster to get on and spring his next attack in the hope that we could capture him and force him to give us the code for the elevator to enable our escape, but I was also terrified of getting attacked in the dark by a gruesome creature. I knew it was just a man in a costume. Well, ninety nine percent certain, but he had already killed Ronald for sure, probably killed Kevin and Brian as well, and injured Big Ben.
‘How’s the shoulder?’ I asked, suddenly remembering his wound.