Travis frowned, then shook his head. “No. I really don’t. The situations I’ve run into, people who seem to have the most problems are in turmoil. You and Penny, you’re settled. The loss is old news, and you’re happy together.”
Paige flinched. “As happy as we can be, considering,” she said, as a wistful expression stole across her features. Travis guessed she was thinking of all the life events that might have been, had Penny lived.
“You’re together,” he repeated. “That’s something very rare. Enjoy it.” He didn’t add the rest of what he was thinking. You paid for it.
On the drive home, Travis fielded calls from Jon and Matthew, dealing with a late supplier, an employee who quit without notice, and an argument that broke out at one of the substance abuse support groups. The problems weren’t earth-shattering or even unusual, but by the time Travis hung up, he felt utterly worn out.
At least for the return trip on Route 22, the scenery was different. After the day’s events and the long drive, Travis thought he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He had battled fatigue on the dark, meandering highway, but when he finally stretched out on his bed, he tossed restlessly.
When sleep finally came, his dreams were jumbled, filled with images of vengeful spirits and creatures he had fought. Eventually, the dreamscape cleared to become a darkened plain with tendrils of mist. Even half-awake, Travis recognized that he had shifted from a brain dump of memories to something real, maybe even prophetic.
“Who’s there?” Travis called into the darkness, knowing that he was not alone.
A figure approached through the mist. The young man appeared to be about eighteen years old, athletically built, and his expression radiated defiant purpose. Travis stared at the newcomer, wondering why he seemed familiar, although he felt certain they had never met.
“You and Brent need to work together, or you’re both going to die.”
Travis looked closer at the newcomer and realized the source of the resemblance. He’d bet his paltry paycheck this was what Brent Lawson looked like in high school. “Who are you?”
“Brent’s twin brother, Danny. I watch out for him. Right now, he needs a wingman. So do you. I don’t want him here with me before his time.”
Danny’s fierce determination and deep sadness touched Travis. “What kind of danger do you see?”
Danny gestured as if indicating everything around him. “The stuff he fights, because of me. Monsters. Magic. Bad stuff. It’s gonna get worse.”
Travis felt a chill at Danny’s warning. He had roused from true sleep and experienced the conversation in a lucid trance, one he would remember when he was fully awake. He had no doubt that the spirit—and the conversation—was real. “Do you know what’s causing the danger? Why are the monsters and the bad stuff happening now?”
Danny shook his head. “I don’t know. Just—watch out for him, okay? I know he can be an asshole,” he added with a lopsided smile, “but he’s a good guy to have watching your back. Tell him I said so—make sure you mention the ‘asshole’ part.”
“How did you—” Travis began, but the vision had already begun to fade. Danny’s ghost raised a hand in farewell before vanishing in the mist.
Travis lurched awake with a gasp, alone in his darkened room. “Shit,” he muttered. Travis felt certain that Danny’s warning was right, but he was also sure that neither he nor Brent Lawson would find it easy to work with a partner. “I just can’t wait to see how this turns out,” he grumbled, falling back onto his mattress in resignation.
Chapter Six
Even after all these years, the Keepers of the secret Archive in the Duquesne Seminary basement creeped Travis out.
They all looked weirdly similar. Travis knew that the men weren’t identical, but the old-fashioned tonsures and cassocks blurred individuality. Maybe that’s the point , he thought. Stealth in numbers. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition… a snarky voice in his mind added unhelpfully.
“What you’re looking for is in the Restricted Reading section,” Father Julian said as he led Travis deeper into the maze of tall shelves and endless corridors. Travis decided he would be only slightly surprised to see snarling, sentient tomes or grimoires bound with human skin that had a blinking eye in the center of the cover. After all, Hollywood has to get its ideas from somewhere.
Duquesne University sat atop a high cliff overlooking the Monongahela River, a sentinel keeping watch over the city of Pittsburgh. Most people held the university in high regard for its academics and sports, but few knew the role it played in preserving and safeguarding rare occult manuscripts or training the Sinistram.
Travis resolutely ignored the unmarked stairwell that led to the offices of the Sinistram contact, hoping that Father Julian hadn’t ratted him out. Since Father Liam hadn’t been waiting for them in the Archive, Travis felt reasonably safe.
“Just because we all serve the same God, don’t assume we agree on the nature of that service,” Julian said as if he could guess Travis’s thoughts.
“I’m just here to look at the books,” Travis replied.
“Father Pavel has missed you at Confession,” Julian added, without a glance in Travis’s direction. Apparently, the Seal of the Confessional applied only to what was said, not to whether or not one was overdue. Travis knew very well that priests indulged in gossip as much as the laity; some of them just felt guiltier about doing it.
“I’ve been busy,” Travis replied, hating the discomfort that Julian’s mild reproof created. His rational mind warred with the ingrained habits of a lifetime, and managed, at best, a truce.
Julian chortled. “The beauty of the sacrament is that you can confess being tardy along with everything else when you finally do show up. I suspect Father Pavel will be reasonably forbearant.”
The university dated from the 1850s, but the Sinistram’s presence predated the seminary by at least a century. Rumor had it that Duquesne was built in its fortified location because the tunnels and Archive already existed deep within the bedrock, and the college buildings merely provided a convenient way to hide in plain sight.
Out of the corner of his eye, Travis caught sight of the Archive’s resident ghosts. He felt their icy touch as they passed by in the narrow corridors, or glimpsed the swish of a robe or the momentary glimmer of a spectral lantern. He stretched out his Gift but felt no uneasiness or discomfort from the spirits. Some were Keepers who chose to stay on, guarding the manuscripts indefinitely. Others were faculty or unlucky students who decided, for reasons of their own, to put off crossing the Veil and remain in a place where they had found meaning and community.
“I find the presence of our long-term residents very comforting,” Julian said, and Travis wondered if the Keeper had hidden telepathic abilities. The Keepers were as mysterious a secret society as the Sinistram, and although Travis avoided politics as much as possible, he gathered that there were points of contention between the two clandestine organizations.
Travis had no intention of haunting his alma mater. As for his views on the afterlife…it was complicated. Being a medium brought with it a unique set of spiritual challenges. “I find it difficult to reconcile what I’ve seen of lost souls and the undead with the idea that ‘to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.’”
“I’ve always thought that the route matters less than the destination.”
Travis knew that a full-blown theological argument could take days, and he had more pressing matters. “That’s insightful,” he replied tactfully. “Let me think about that.”
Julian might have sneezed, but Travis suspected the Keeper gave a quiet snort, fully recognizing Travis’s deflection for what it was. “The Restricted Reading Room,” Julian said, standing to one side of an unsettlingly solid oak door reinforced with an iron grill worked with protective runes. Travis was sure that a salt barrier reinforced with iron filings and refreshed with holy water made the room its own spiritual containment center. Nothing inhu
man or infernal could get in—or out.
“Thank you,” Travis said. “I’ll be needing a couple of hours to research.”
Julian nodded. “And I’ll come back for you in three, as always. You know I can’t leave you in there longer. And you know why.”
Travis stifled a sigh of frustration. The Keepers regarded the items in the restricted room as being sullied at best, dangerous at worst, and carefully monitored access to protect the souls of those whose work necessitated contact. Since overriding protocol required intervention from Father Liam, Travis did his utmost to keep his usage of the special library to the bare minimum.
“I promise I won’t end up with two heads or start breathing fire,” Travis assured the Keeper.
Julian gave an eloquent shrug. “I’ve learned that we’re rarely the best judge of the inroads the Darkness makes on our souls.”
“You’ll know where to find me when time’s up,” Travis replied, doing his best to keep his tone civil. Julian was one of the most approachable of the Keepers, and he tried to remind himself that staying locked away in a cellar on top of taking vows might not make for good social skills. Still, the priest’s condescension rankled as Travis closed the door behind him.
“Brother Penrod? I know you’re here,” Travis called in a quiet voice. The large subterranean room offered no hiding places, not that Penrod would need one. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were filled with books, manuscripts, and scrolls, with two large study tables and four chairs. The electric lighting seemed to struggle against the shadows here, though it was adequate elsewhere in the building, and Travis attributed the perpetual chill to more than good air conditioning. He could almost picture what the room had been like back when the Archive was founded, lit only by lamps with fluttering candle flames. Despite himself, Travis’s hand found the rosary in his pocket.
Without waiting for a reply, Travis moved around the familiar room, mindful that his time was limited. He had secreted his phone in his pocket—a sin of omission—despite the rules and knowing that deep beneath the rock he would not get any signal. Instead, the camera and recording features were what he valued since he suspected the resources he needed might exceed quick note-taking.
He plucked familiar tomes from shelves, stifling a shiver at the residual darkness he sensed when his flesh touched the bindings. Knowledge came at a price, and some of the priests who had diligently explored the Dark Side forfeited their sanity, their lives, and perhaps their souls. He wondered how many of those men had become obsessed out of a need for penance and revenge, or perhaps survivor guilt. Hunters, like himself. Travis could identify with the emotions, still unsure whether they counted as sins or merely scar tissue.
“I know you’re here,” Travis spoke to the empty air as he added to his pile on one of the tables. He clicked on a reading light and made a face at how little its glow helped to drive back the gloom. “Don’t play games. I need to talk to you.”
After he had pulled more than a dozen volumes from the shelves, Travis stood with his hands on his hips and regarded the rest of the collection. “Demonology” comprised a significant portion of the special library, but the types and manifestations were so varied that most of those books would be overly general for his purposes. Unfortunately, even the archaic card catalog was no help in narrowing his search for “hell-maggots.”
Travis felt Brother Penrod’s presence, but the ghost still hadn’t shown himself, so he sorted the books on the table, setting out his pens and tablet, and finding the notes he had jotted of things to look up or ask about.
“I’m a medium, you know,” Travis said with a sigh of exasperation. “I can see you, even if you don’t make the effort to appear.”
A puff of air gave Travis the impression Penrod had huffed in frustration. Gradually a form took shape from mist until the image of a short, stout man in his middle years looked nearly solid. Travis wasn’t sure how long Penrod had been dead, but something about the monk made him suspect it was within the past century.
You shouldn’t come here so often, Travis , Penrod warned with a somber, jowly face like a depressed bloodhound. You’ll end up like me.
“You’re here because you chose to be locked up in this room, Pen,” Travis replied, familiar with the warning and their ongoing disagreement. “That’s taking an abundance of caution too far.”
Better safe than sorry, Penrod replied. What awful happenings bring you here this time?
Travis was well aware than Penrod disapproved of his demon hunting, even as the dead priest grudgingly acknowledged that someone had to do it, or the battle would be lost by default. The regret and self-loathing that clung to the spirit like a shroud made his judgment tolerable since Travis chalked it up as a misguided attempt to protect others from the man’s own fate.
“People who won’t bury their dead. Spontaneous outbursts of violence from people who aren’t likely suspects, and tormented souls infested with hell-maggots, plus a mysterious black truck that might be snatching people, and all of it linked to the area around Cooper City,” Travis recapped. “Anything sound familiar?”
Sternetur tinea et inferni , Penrod murmured in Latin, crossing himself. You are playing with fire, my son.
Travis gave a shrug, palms turned upward. “Just doing my job. I can tell by the flinch that you know something.” Any subject that made the dead uncomfortable ought to send the living screaming in panic. Travis had spent a lifetime rushing in where angels—or their proxies—feared to tread.
Penrod looked as if he were fighting an internal debate. Finally, he relented. The infernal worms you call “hell-maggots” are known. But they do not appear on their own.
“Tell me,” Travis begged. “People are dying and being driven insane. And I think this is only the beginning.”
Penrod’s pained expression worried Travis. These hell-maggots are low-level demons—more correctly, imps. Perhaps not even that powerful. An infestation, like lice. They feed on dark desires and hidden weaknesses, and as they eat away at souls, they magnify the worst attributes.
“Could they latch onto a person who was depressed and make them suicidal?”
Penrod nodded. They feed on negative emotions like grief, despondency, anger, jealousy. And if they can push the host into committing a mortal sin, they would gorge themselves.
Travis wasn’t convinced that desperation great enough to end one’s own life counted as “sin,” but he didn’t have time to argue. “You said they didn’t appear on their own. What did you mean?”
If you had a battlefield covered with corpses, it would draw flies and vultures , Penrod replied. Their presence didn’t cause the deaths; they are an aftereffect. So the hell-maggots are a symptom, but not a cause. Something draws them to an area—something darker and more powerful.
“Full demons? Nephilim? Warlocks?” Travis pressed. Penrod tended to talk around the point, but Travis had no way of knowing whether it was a side-effect of being dead or merely carried over from his living self.
Penrod shook his head. Those will also be attracted to whatever calls the hell-maggots, but it requires a nexus to pull that much dark energy to it. A hell gate opening, perhaps. Or a reoccurring cycle of some sort—ritual magic, for example.
“What about something like a genius loci?” Travis pressed. “A natural spirit of a place. Could one of those be corrupted?”
Penrod considered for a moment. Perhaps. Or it might have always been twisted. Just because something is part of nature doesn’t make it benign. Disease is natural, but it slays millions.
Travis’s heart sank. He had battled his share of demons and other supernatural creatures, but even with the Sinistram, he had not fought anything powerful enough to be a magnet for other dark entities. He had heard rumors—legends, really—that some of the Sinistram’s more storied warriors had overcome threats like that, but now that he thought about it, details were sparse.
“How do I stop it?” Travis looked at the mound of books that he could barely skim in the
time remaining.
Find the source , Penrod said. His shape had started to waver and grow less defined, and Travis felt the spirit’s energy waning. There is always a way to close a door—but the cost might be more than you wish to pay. With that, Penrod’s form dissipated, leaving Travis to stare at thin air.
“What is it about dead people that they like to speak in riddles?” Travis shouted to the empty room, gambling that Penrod could still hear him even if he had vanished from Travis’s Sight. In response, one of the books suddenly moved several inches and dropped from the table, landing on its spine. It fell open, and pages riffled until it finally lay still.
“Thanks,” Travis called out. “I’m still annoyed.” He bent to pick up the old leather-bound tome and frowned as he read the section to which the ghost had opened.
“Hell gates and Liminal Spaces,” he read aloud, translating from Latin, then settled down in his chair. He had already resigned himself to merely scratching the surface in the books he had selected, but if he could at least narrow the subject, he could note which manuscripts might be the most useful when he returned for another research session.
“Hell gates are formed when great tragedy, an excessive expenditure of dark energy or significant bloodshed occurs in a place where the boundary between our reality and the next is already thin. Some call these places ‘liminal space,’ since they are a line between the world we know and somewhere else. Often, but not always, these gateway places are found at crossroads, the edge of the forest, the shore of a body of water, the foot of a mountain, the mouth of a cave. These places are not inherently evil, but they are like lodestones for power, and if they do not attract dark forces, they often become revered as shrines or sacred spots. Some call them genius loci and consider them to be imbued with a sentient spirit.
Hell gates can also be formed from the sheer magnitude of evil concentrated in a single, massive act of destruction, such as a massacre, catastrophic accident, or brutal battle. In some cases, the supernatural energy of a place makes it inherently unhealthy. Such places gain a reputation for being ‘unlucky’ or ‘haunted.’ If the energy is strong enough, it may attract malicious people and entities who deepen the dark energy through additional and repeated acts of violence.
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