by Alexie Aaron
Lorna nodded to Tonia who got to her feet and waited until all eyes were on her before she spoke, “A hundred years ago, a man who called himself Edwin Brentwood decided to go to California to seek his fortune. He wasn’t a miner, nor was he a man that wanted to work for a living. He was a crook, pure and simple. He took delight in scamming widows out of their money, men out of their fortunes, and children out of their inheritance. We don’t know where he came from originally, but we have documentation of his arrival in San Francisco, a photo taken at the Panama Pacific International Exposition. He was a tall man of indeterminate European heritage. Unlike myself, wearing my Chinese and Irish ancestry on my face, his face gave away nothing. He managed to integrate himself among the leading families using forged introduction papers. He set up a house where he entertained these people lavishly.”
Tonia stopped a moment and closed her eyes. She opened her eyes and continued, “Soon after, people began disappearing from the poorer sections of town. Because of their poverty and race, the police didn’t do more than note the pleas from the missing relatives. We think that Brentwood took these men, women and children and exploited them before disposing of them. This went on until the Great Flu epidemic of 1918 took Brentwood and most of his household. The house fell into ruin and was demolished. When the property was cleared, the construction crew found something very unexpected in the foundations of the house. Skeletons. There were so many bones there that the head of the crew made a note that perhaps the house had been used as a funeral home after the big earthquake. But upon further examination, the remains weren’t that old. An engraved locket found around the neck of one of the skeletons was a key discovery. It was a bauble to commemorate the Panama Exposition.”
“Articles used in satanic rituals were also found in amongst the bones. We think that Brentwood was seeking power from the underworld and paying for it with the lives and souls of the poor.”
“So if Brentwood died in 1918, how is he a problem now?” Mike asked.
“August 31st, 1930, David Rogers, a librarian by trade, fell from a ladder. His injuries put him into a coma. He awoke several days later. He left his family, took up with a woman of ill repute and soon amassed a large fortune. Again, the poor started to disappear. Historians tell us that David Rogers was caught in an abduction attempt, and while he was in jail awaiting trial, his home was searched. In it, a charnel house of horror was uncovered. I don’t need to go into the descriptions, but I will tell you that the killings were ritualistic in the style of Brentwood.”
“He could have been one of Brentwood’s acolytes,” Audrey suggested.
“I would agree with you, had we only this amount of information before us but…” Tonia went on to tell the group of Rogers’s death verdict. “Right as Rogers’s neck broke, he called out his wife’s name.”
“Again, not unusual, considering,” Audrey pointed out.
“In 1945, a woman, apparently suffering the complications of a bad childbirth, passed away only to regain consciousness moments after they recorded her last breath. Martha Barrington recovered and left her husband and children to become a prostitute. She managed to infiltrate and rise out of the criminal element to become a very powerful woman. The pattern of abductions akin to Brentwood and Rogers resumed. This stopped when she passed. There were a few more incidents of coma patients waking with bizarre behavior and rising to powerful positions before death occurred. No one put two and two together. Not until the San Francisco Cold Crime Unit began putting archival data into their system. To them it looked like copycat killers. We now know better.” Tonia raised her hand in Lorna’s direction.
Lorna took over. “We discovered this pattern recently after the Bay City Killer was shot to death in a battle with police. The serial killer calmly walked into the barrage of bullets. Death by cop I think they call it. When his digs were examined, they found a mass gravesite. Bones carrying the same marks as the ones found in Rogers’s home and the same as Brentwood put on the dead as he traded their life-force in his rituals. We think we are dealing with a soul-jumper.”
Mia, who was not unfamiliar with the practice, tensed. “Are you sure it’s not a demon?” she asked.
“The pattern of the near dead rising makes us lean towards the spirit taking possession of the body and mind of the person. A demon possesses a bit differently,” Lorna pointed out but quickly admitted, “Although it’s very easy to get them confused. I have.”
“A spirit leaves a trail, a disruption in the ether. A demon travels another route,” Tonia explained.
“Why would this soul-jumper leave San Francisco?” Burt asked. “Seems to me it did quite well there.”
“We’re not sure. Could be that the hunting grounds were played out. In the last few possessions, the entity didn’t operate long before being discovered by the police. No time to build up power. Perhaps it was time to move on. Seek out other cities.”
“Then why is it here?” Mia asked. “The middle house in Cold Creek Hollow has no living receptacles.”
“But it does have power. It could be that it’s resting until a vessel is ready for possession. All I know is, I tracked the bugger here, and as far as I can determine, it’s still here.”
“Why are you involved?” Ted asked the question all of them were thinking.
“Tonia and I have an unusual calling. I’ll not waste your time on our history, but my great grandfather and Tonia’s grandmothers guide us to spirits that are taking advantage of the people of this dimension. Possession is a big no-no. Trapping lesser spirits so they can’t ascend is another. The list is, shall we say, vast, but the punishment is clear. You mess with this world; you lose your right to the next. Our job is to extinguish their presence, so that the universe can deal with them.”
“Like an exorcism?” Cid asked.
“That’s for demons. We don’t deal with demons. We have, but we don’t like it much. They smell and bite. We leave the demons to the various religions. Demons don’t die. They just go away and pop up somewhere else, unless they are contained. Again, not our field of expertise,” Tonia said.
“That thing Mia saw in Miss Blackwell’s memory resembled a demon,” Audrey said.
“And it could have been one,” Tonia agreed. “Although, it’s quite possible it isn’t there now. If it is then well…”
“Angelo Michaels will have to be called in,” Audrey stated.
“Who is this Angelo?” Lorna asked.
“I gather from what we’ve talked about, he’s a birdman,” Tonia explained. “Italian in origin.”
Lorna looked at the faces in the room and centered in on Murphy. “They don’t like this birdman, do they?”
Murphy gathered himself and asked, “Would you?”
The PEEPs, who rarely heard Murphy speak, looked at Mia. She, in turn, looked back at each of them before she centered on the spirit chasers and explained, “We’ve had a bit of bad history between us. We have called him in to deal with a demon before, and he has helped us out of quite a few tight spots. But, and this is a big but, he’s all about the end game and tends to sacrifice quite a few pawns along the way, to put it delicately.”
“I think you can consider Tonia and I warned. Can we count on your help? We understand if you decline, although we then ask for you not to stand in our way and disrupt our hunt.”
“I think you’ll have to give us a moment,” Burt said.
Tonia got up and motioned for Lorna to follow her. “We’ll take a walk around the grounds. Ring the bell when you’ve come to a decision.”
Burt waited for the ladies to leave, and Murphy watched them as they walked away from the house before giving Mia the all clear.
“They’re out of hearing range, although I wouldn’t count on mind reading distance.”
“Really, which one?” Mike asked.
“Tonia,” Mia and Audrey said together.
“How did I miss that?” he asked himself.
“Too busy checking out those tight jeans,�
� Cid teased.
Mike laughed. “One of my biggest downfalls is a shapely…”
“Ahem,” Burt warned, “We have ladies present.”
“Sorry, Audrey, Ted,” Mike said.
Ted flipped him the bird.
“Children,” Burt scolded. “Let’s get back to business. Do we want to put ourselves in the position of being used by these two?”
Mia liked that Burt was thinking along the same lines as she was. She added, “They’re no better than Angelo. They have a mission. They want results.”
“But the threat they are aiming to extinguish is in our backyard,” Ted reminded them. “We didn’t finish with the hollow. We are partly at fault here.”
“Trusting Father Santos isn’t exactly being at fault,” Burt said. “But I do wish we would have followed through. I don’t like loose ends. Is there anyone opposed to helping them?”
He took time and looked at each member of his team, searching their faces for more than their consent. He wanted to gauge their fear at the same time. He asked, “Stephen, what do you think? You have the biggest risk with these two spirit eradicators around.”
Mia and Ted looked over at their friend. He seemed touched by Burt’s concern. He drew in some power, which caused the smoke detector to sound a low battery alarm, and said, “Work with them, but watch our backs.”
Ted, pulling a nine volt from his pocket and walking over to the annoying chirping device, said, “I think that’s it in a nutshell. We help them, but carefully.”
“I’ll go and ring the bell after I get an energon cube for Murphy,” Cid said, getting up. “We need to keep our greatest asset charged and healthy.”
Murphy looked at him oddly.
“He called you an asset not an ass,” Mia clarified. “Get the soap out of your ears. Honestly, Ted’s going to have to engineer a hearing aid for you next.”
Murphy narrowed his eyes and shook his finger at Mia which caused her to start laughing.
“Eh, what did you say?” she said with her hand cupped around her ear. “Ted, how about a tin trumpet?”
“Might get in the way of his axe swing, dear,” Ted said, completing the installation of the new battery.
“Mia, be nice,” Burt said.
“Ah, let the girl be,” Mike said. “About time the old fart was teased.”
Murphy moved right behind Mike and let his axe fall.
CRACK!
Mike jumped out of his chair.
Audrey almost wet herself laughing so hard at the spectacle.
Burt took out his gavel and pounded on the coffee table. “Order, order, settle down.”
This just caused the rest of them to break out laughing, so Burt gave up and joined them.
Chapter Six
Thaddeus Maynard the Third left the fundraiser well after the last check had been torn from the donors’ checkbooks. He stumbled past the now-closed open bar and headed for the valet stand. He would have to be tricky. He knew the hostess of the charity benefit had sent word to not, under any circumstances, give him the keys to his red Mercedes S63 AMG. He found this impossible to comprehend; with all the safety devices, the car practically drove itself. Hell, it already helped him navigate his way to this shindig in the first place, after his pre-event cocktails.
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to have the celebrity roast out in nowheresville? Just because the honoree had started in this obscure town and had funneled much of his fortune into making it the go-to place for the rich and bored, it didn’t impress him one bit. It was forty miles outside of Chicago and nowhere near anything familiar. Just about every sizable house in the area had gone through expensive B&B conversions. The main street that the locals had known disappeared, and something familiar to Sundance, Wyoming had emerged. There was talk of testing the waters for a film festival here next year.
Thaddeus wasn’t convinced that a venue like that could survive being so close to Chicago, whose fledgling movie industry was constantly under attack by Mother Nature. This wasn’t Wyoming. There were no mountains to draw the skiers. It was just a quiet corner of Illinois. Quaint, but too quiet, and not enough bars for his taste.
“Tad, I’ve booked you into the Greenville B&B,” the hostess had told him hours ago. “It’s just down the street, not more than a block.”
He had nodded and let her press the business card into his hand. He was used to people deciding things for him. If it wasn’t dear old dad, it was the ex-wife. But his new lawyer had freed him from the interference of family. His mother’s money securely in his bank account, Thaddeus didn’t have to kowtow to his father anymore. The only thing he still had in common with the man was their name.
Thaddeus, affectionately known as Tad, was a favorite amongst the charity hostesses. They knew all they had to do was produce an open bar, and he would produce his checkbook. He was generous with his money, especially after being plied with his favorite blend of Scotch whisky.
Thaddeus walked out to the valet stand, positioned himself behind the duo of uniformed men and waited until one of them left to retrieve a car. He cleared his voice.
“Can I help you?”
“I’ve been waiting for a cab for hours. Can you see what’s happened to it?” he asked.
“I’m not supposed to leave the stand…” the valet started to say but stopped upon seeing the hundred dollar bill being drawn from the pocket of the expensively-dressed drunk before him. “I’ll be right back,” he said and walked into the lobby.
Thaddeus opened the box and snatched his key. It was easy to find. It wasn’t just the matching valet tag, but the red warning sticker attached to the back of the valet tag. He palmed the key quickly and stepped back into place.
The valet came hurrying out. “There wasn’t a taxi ordered for you, sir, but I called one personally. It will be a few minutes.”
“Thank you, I’ll wait for it inside,” he lied.
The valet was very happy to see the combustible patron leave his stand.
Thaddeus entered the building and walked out again a few seconds later, following a large group outside. When one of the valets left to retrieve their car, Thaddeus followed him, keeping to the shadows. It was a fun game of Spy vs Spy. Even though the valet didn’t know he was playing. He followed the man into a lot and hid behind an M class until the valet had retrieved the car and driven towards the building.
He walked over and pulled the red card off the windshield of his car and got in. He started the engine, put his seatbelt on for safety and drove off. He waved at the taxi that passed him on the way up the drive. The man would be put off at not only missing his passenger, but at being rousted out of bed this late at night to drive some drunk one block to his accommodation.
Thaddeus smiled as he made his way off of the property and onto the main street. He kept his speed slow until he had cleared the last building of this pale imitation of Sundance, Wyoming. He wasn’t used to traveling this far after an evening out and wasn’t really certain he could find his way back. Sure, his car’s navigation system would chime in suggested turns, but after a while, he found her voice annoying. It wasn’t that she sounded remarkably like his ex; it was that she talked, period. His bladder ached, and he needed to relieve himself. He pulled the car over to the side of the country lane and got out, walked around the car, unzipped his fly and sighed.
As he urinated, he looked around him. The night sky was clear, and he was surprised by the amount of stars he could see. In the city, the light pollution made it difficult to see anything beyond the sky’s big players, but here, he was spoiled for choice. The air was cool, and it sobered him a bit. He finished his business and took one last look at the stars before returning to the driver’s side of the car. He stared at the open door. He didn’t remember leaving the door open, but in his present state of inebriation, it was possible. He got in and started the car.
He took a moment to reorient himself to the car. He clicked the seatbelt closed and adjusted his mirrors. The rearview
mirror seemed to have a dead spot where it reflected nothing. He turned it this way and that until he had a full view of the rear windshield and the backseat too.
He signaled and pulled back onto the empty road.
“Take the next left,” the voice told him.
Thaddeus, puzzled by the change in timbre of the voice of the navigation system, reached forward to access the panel.
“Turn left now,” he was instructed.
He did as instructed and returned to fiddling with the radio. The lit display wasn’t on and… It wasn’t on at all. He shook his head. If the nav wasn’t giving him instructions then who was?
His eyes darted to the seat beside him. It was empty. He didn’t want to look in the rearview mirror. In every movie, when the main character looked in the rearview mirror, he saw something he didn’t want to see. So Thaddeus reached up blindly and turned the mirror away from him. There, what you couldn’t see, couldn’t hurt you.
“Turn right at the next intersection.”
“No,” Thaddeus said firmly. He accelerated as if he could put distance between himself and whatever was giving him orders from the backseat.
“You’re not listening,” the voice, now irritated, growled. “I said…”
“You said nothing!” Thaddeus screamed. “You’re not real, and you can’t tell me what to do, so shut the fuck up!”
Thaddeus waited and no further instructions came from the backseat. Maybe he was imagining it. It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before after a few bottles of Johnnie Walker shared between chums.
He decreased his speed, aware that he was approaching a small town. Small towns meant speed or, worse, DUI traps. He kept a steady hand on the wheel, driving two miles below the speed limit, holding it together until after the last streetlight was more than a memory. He looked up at the mirror frowning. He had forgotten why he had it adjusted away from him. He reached up and centered it. He clicked off the night vision and stared at the empty backseat. Laughing at his misplaced fear, he clicked on the night vision and continued driving. This would be a story to tell the boys alright. The night Thaddeus Maynard the Third almost shit himself thinking he had someone riding in the backseat with him.