by Alexie Aaron
“Yes you are,” Mia said, leaning in for a kiss. “And don’t you forget it.”
~
“What do you mean you’re running out of lackeys?” the demon howled. “This place was filled with them moments before. What about Brentwood? Seems to me the soul-jumper owes you a favor or two.”
“I’ve sent him for the box. I now know where it’s at. Whoever took it knew it couldn’t be moved too far away or you would have had more freedom than you are presently experiencing. So I cast my eye upon the countryside and came up with its probable location. Tricky part is that it’s being guarded by people that can see spirits. I can’t go and get it, but Brentwood has the ability to hide his spirit form. Cloaked, he is just energy, smelly energy but energy. He’ll be able to sneak past their guards, breach their defenses and bring home the box.”
“He better. I grow tired of your games, Mrs. Blackwell,” the demon warned. “I still can devour you, remember that. You may be able to tap my power, but my will is my own.”
Honor moved her hands over her arms. She remembered what her skin used to feel like and what goose bumps did to it. Now they just pushed the flesh away faster than she could recover it. Fortunately for her, she was wearing long sleeves.
~
Brentwood avoided the lowlands, the forest and the hillside. He chose instead to move along the roadway towards his target. He hadn’t existed this long without a good sense of self-preservation. He heard the call of the deer-woman but managed not to get sucked into her spell. His power, built up from over a century of sacrifices, gave him the ability to withstand her call. It was just music to him.
He approached the farm from the south. Brentwood moved through the swamp and skirted the large vehicle containing the horses. He heard them stir in their sleep, but no human seemed to be about. Could collecting the silver box be this easy? He would have to manifest as a spirit and gather enough energy to become solid in order to carry it. He started to draw power as soon as he entered the barn. The lights dimmed before going out completely.
He was surprised to find the box encased in a heavy lead-lined box of some kind. Brentwood bent down to try to lift the heavy vault and, after a few unsuccessful tries, decided to open it and draw the box out. He broke the catch off the box.
“Have you come to collect your prize, soul-jumper?” a woman’s voice echoed through the building.
“I’ve come to take what is ours,” he replied, looking through the dimness for whoever was talking to him.
“As you take innocents’ bodies?” she asked.
“I only take what I need to survive,” he said, sensing the person speaking was to the right of him. He lunged out and became caught up in a web-like substance. “What the hell!” he howled when the web quickly took hold of his mass before he could dissipate.
“No, but you will be seeing hell soon,” Tonia said. She walked out of the darkness carrying a single white taper. She drew a match out of her pocket and struck it on the sole of her boot. The match sizzled as a small flame sparked to life. She then lit the thin hand-dipped candle with it. The joining of the fire from the match and the wick caused a small combustion. Red and blue sparks leapt from the wick. They moved straight towards the web. When each spark landed, it caused the fine material to quicken. Soon it had hardened around the spirit, giving Brentwood form. He looked like a monochromatic wax statue of a man. There was nothing physically striking about this monster. He was of medium height and build. His face would get lost in a crowd. He would have no doubt blended in and been forgotten the moment he walked past you.
“Mia, Ted, Audrey and Cid, witness what a poor excuse for a human Brentwood was in life.”
The waxen figure turned its head and saw the quartet of ghost hunters staring at him from across the expanse of the barn. He raised his fist and cursed, “You will all pay!” He tried to advance to attack them but found his feet one with the concrete of the barn floor.
“You see, he’s quite ordinary,” Tonia bated. “Probably went unnoticed most of his life. This must have enraged the psychopath.”
Brentwood twisted and turned but was unable to move his lower body. He was stuck. Slowly the paralysis moved upward. At the rate it was going, soon he would not be able to use his hands.
“Witness this man who was born with an intelligence to rival his peers. He chose to use his cunning to cheat, his wit to scam, his inherited wealth to buy his way into society. He could have used his talents to better humanity. Instead, he chose to prey upon them.”
“Who are you to charge me?” he baited.
“I speak for the innocent men, women and children you tortured and consumed. The people whose lives you took in the process of using their bodies. All the souls who have been lost, I speak for them all.”
“Do I not have a say in my own defense? Can I call a lawyer, someone to attest to my character?”
“Do I look like Judge Judy? The answer is no. I will, however, allow you time to prepare yourself. Think about your crimes. Repent your nefarious ways. Ask for forgiveness.”
The barn’s interior filled with fog. Mia grabbed hold of Audrey’s hand and Ted’s arm. “The ceiling and walls are gone,” she informed them.
Cid moved behind her, placing his hand on her shoulder and whispered, “I hear a faint drumming. As if many feet are moving our way.”
“I smell yew and lavender,” Audrey said quietly. “Now there is Chanel Number Five in the air.
“That’s my Grandma Fred,” Mia explained. “I gave her the scent when I came to live with her.”
“What else can you see?” Ted asked.
“I see a procession of women. Three I recognize, but there are hundreds of them. They are dressed in clothing of their time and place in the world. They’ve all come to witness. There is a separate group of men, women and children. Their clothing ranges from Murphy’s day to now. I feel strongly that these are the lost souls.”
“Come, come,” Tonia invited the last group. “Come and see justice done.”
“The souls are sitting with the Council of Women, which has formed a partial circle around Brentwood, at their backs. We make up the missing part of the circle,” Mia informed them. “I gather we are meant to witness justice carried out. Audrey, this could be rough.”
“I’m prepared for the worst. Do you smell ozone?”
“Not exactly sure what you mean,” Mia confessed and asked, “Ozone?”
“You know, like after a lightning storm?”
“Oh,” Mia said, looking around her. “I don’t smell that, but I do see that the sky is filling with clouds. Ted, maybe we should take a couple of steps backwards,” Mia suggested.
Cid led the retreat, hearing the distant rumble of thunder, each set getting louder and more frequent.
“Before you, sit the souls you have harmed. What say you Edwin Brentwood?” Tonia asked.
“Sorry, no offense,” he said lamely.
“Your mockery shows your lack of remorse,” Tonia observed.
“No, it shows my contempt. I have no regard for you, your council or the pieces of meat I have used and dined on. You are nothing but fodder,” he spat.
Tonia turned to the Council and each and every woman turned around. Their backs signaling their decision.
“You have been found guilty,” Tonia announced. “Justice will be carried out. Edwin Brentwood, I sentence your soul to be consumed by lightning, never to rise again, never to feel the grace of the sun.”
Brentwood opened his mouth in protest. The clouds opened up and a massive bolt of energy surged downward, impaling him as it emptied itself into the ground.
Mia watched. It seemed that even though it took less than a second for the lightning to do its worst, she witnessed Brentwood experiencing a slow torturous death. The wax melted away, and he was once again a spirit. Mia witnessed a bubbling of tiny sparks that attacked every molecule of energy. They shriveled and fell to ash.
Tonia knelt down and scooped the ash into a pouch. S
he got up and walked to one of the women of the Council. She handed the sealed pouch to her saying, “Edwin Brentwood will cease to be. No more mention of his crimes will be heard. No one will know of his sick existence in order to use it as a model for their climb to power.”
Ted ruminated for a moment and said to Mia, “If only the media would follow her path; we’d have less violence in the world.”
Mia squeezed his hand. She was about to speak when a blinding light appeared to the right side of the group. “A brilliant light has appeared,” she told the PEEPs. “It is calling to the lost souls.”
A tremor was felt just before the ground opened up and a cave pushed out of it. A dark maw appeared, also calling to the lost souls.
“Hell has also issued an invite,” she said, drawing Ted, Audrey and Cid closer to her. “I’ve never seen this before. Stay close.”
“You are being given a choice. Each of you has to make a decision,” Tonia informed the lost.
“They are being given a choice. Those who can forgive Brentwood and the universe will go into the light. Those who cannot will, well… you know.”
“Do you actually think some will choose hell?” Audrey asked.
“Remember, in this world there is good and evil,” Mia said softly. “Some people, even given another chance, will choose evil over and over again.”
Mia watched as all but three walked into the light. “Two men and a woman have turned their back on the light and have entered the cave. The cave is retreating into the ground, and the light has disappeared,” Mia described. “The Council has started to leave.”
Ted, Audrey and Cid watched as the walls of the barn reappeared. The roof enclosed them once more, and the only light was the rising sun as it pierced the spaces between the old boards in the eastern wall. Ted walked over and turned on the lights.
Tonia squinted at the light a moment. “Whoa, I’d hate to have your electric bill.”
Mia walked over to where the lead box was and examined the cooling mass. “Did he know he was standing on the demons heart?” she asked Tonia.
“I wonder,” Tonia mused, “Could he have been trying to sacrifice himself in the end to open the box?”
“Look how the heat from the bolt has melted the thing into a solid mass of lead. Do you think the box is damaged?”
“Come on, Clark,” Ted said to Cid, putting on a pair of welding gloves as he walked. He lifted the heavy, hardened, molten mess and shook it hard.
Cid who was standing near him smiled. “It’s still sloshing around inside.”
“That super hearing comes in handy. I hate to have to explain to the council that our little trap almost unleashed the demon,” Tonia admitted.
“How did you know they would send him?” Audrey asked.
“I didn’t really know, but I surmised that Mrs. Blackwell wouldn’t come herself, leaving the demon unattended. Thaddeus is himself again, so no mercenaries. That just leaves Alice May, and knowing her mother, she’s forgotten all about her.”
“What about the others in the house?” Mia questioned.
“They would have to be strong enough to move the box, and frankly, if they were that strong, they wouldn’t be trapped in the house.”
“Or given the opportunity, they would have left,” Cid added. “Who wants to stick around now the tide has turned?”
“Careful, we aren’t finished yet,” Tonia warned. “When dealing with a demon, anything can happen. I have a scar on my thigh that testifies to that.”
Mia remembered her comment about demons biting and put two and two together. “Did he get away?” Mia asked, pointing to her thigh.
“Yup, still hunting the thing in my spare time,” she admitted. “He literally owes me a pound of flesh.”
Audrey turned a little green.
Mia put her arm around her and led her out of the barn and into the office. She pulled out a chair and insisted the investigator sit down. “Come on, Nancy Drew, you saw a guy’s soul fried to ash, and you’re going to let a war story upset your tummy?”
“That and the beer I drank last night,” Audrey moaned. “When you came bursting into my room in the middle of the night, I almost tossed my cookies then.”
“Sorry about that. But in my defense, I didn’t want you to miss the show, and I didn’t want you alone in the house. Shit, the house. I left Maggie there. I better run and let her out.”
Audrey scooted up to the table and laid her head on her arms. She didn’t hear when the boys entered the room or feel the warm blanket being put around her shoulders in her sleep by Cid.
Maggie kept an eye on Mia who stood watching her sniff around the yard before relieving herself. She was used to the unusual hours her nocturnal masters kept. She, having the title of Dog, had the supreme benefits of sleeping pretty much when she wanted, where she wanted. Although, lately her ears had been awake even though her eyes were closed. There were too many odd things going on for her to sleep with her ears turned off. Each person in her small world was on edge, even the wispy, axe-carrying man they called Murphy.
Mia kept turning around as if she were looking for something she’d lost. Maggie decided to keep her ministrations to a minimum, sensing that the woman was anxious to be somewhere else.
Ted walked over to where Mia stood, and put an arm around her. “How’s tricks?”
“Her name’s Maggie, and she had a bursting bladder, poor thing. We need to put in a doggie door.”
“Ah, in my experience, doggie doors let in raccoons, opossums, cats, and probably a few of the undead. Plus, Maggie still doesn’t seem to understand that streets aren’t for running in and out of,” he reminded her.
“You’re right. I’d hate to put her in a fenced yard when our nearest neighbor is… Damn, how far?”
“Six and seven tenths miles to Brook’s place.”
“Gee, should I be worried you know the exact mileage to Miss Brook’s farm stand?”
Ted laughed, thinking of the kind octogenarian and her strawberry jam tarts. “Cid and I had a bet. He said it was seven miles to Brooks. I won.”
“He was close.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades,” Ted said smugly.
“Now I’ve not heard that in a while,” Mia mused. “When will this all be over? I’m itching for a ten hour nap.”
“Until we get the hollow sorted, I’m sure none of us will sleep nights. Are you regretting renting out your house to Burt? There at least you could get some sleep.”
“No. I hate to tell you this, but from what I’ve learned about demons from Father Alessandro, demons aren’t repelled by Morton salt, water, iron, well, pretty much anything. He says, ‘They only respect the truth,’ and don’t ask me what he means by that. I’ve gotten three frown lines trying to decipher it.” Mia turned to her husband. “Besides, I have you to keep me safe here.”
“Murphy too,” he acknowledged. “Speaking of, where is that rascal?”
“I don’t know. I have a feeling he’s guarding the property line and keeping an eye on Angelo and Lorna.”
“Do you think you could leave the world in his hands for a few hours and get some sleep? No demon in his right mind is going to cause a ruckus until noon, it’s just not proper.”
“Maggie!” Mia called. “Time for bed.”
Maggie ran over and waited for the couple on the porch. As she watched them, she noticed the tall man turn and scan the hillside. She walked into the house, comforted that he too was on watch. Perhaps she could turn off her ears for a while.
Chapter Twenty-six
Audrey picked her head up and rubbed the soreness out of her neck. She looked around the office and marveled at how quiet the place was. She walked into the washroom and splashed some water on her face before chancing a glance in the mirror. Her hair was wild and resembled a nest of vipers. She did her best to tame the curls with water and her fingertips. What did she expect after being abducted, held in a damp cave, too many beers, and hanging out at an a
rraignment, trial, and execution?
“Did that really happen?” she asked the brown-eyed woman in the mirror. She nodded, giving both her reflection and herself confirmation of Tonia’s dispensing justice upon Edwin Brentwood.
She smelled coffee when she walked back into the office. Tonia stood watching the machine brew in the small kitchenette.
“Morning, or should I say afternoon?” the spirit hunter teased.
“Afternoons are mornings in the ghost hunting playbook,” Audrey informed her.
“I hear you. I don’t sleep sometimes for days at a time, and then I have a long rest.”
“A regular Rip Van Winkle,” Audrey said. “Speaking of Rip, how about that storm?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’ve never read Washington Irving’s telling of Rip Van Winkle?”
“No.”
“Well, bring me a cup of what you’re having, and I’ll tell you about the little men playing nine pins – that’s bowling these days.”
“There’s ten pins in bowling,” Tonia corrected.
“Don’t be a Cid.”
“Cid?”
“He can be a pedantic putz at times,” Audrey explained.
“Oh, sorry,” Tonia said, handing Audrey a cup before sitting down. “Now tell me of this Rip Van Winkle and the nine pins…”
Cid, who at first smarted at the pedantic putz comment, sat back and listened to Audrey’s telling of Washington Irving’s tale, which Irving got from Dietrich Knickerbocker’s papers. Actually, he thought, Washington Irving used the nom de plume Geoffrey Crayon when he elaborated on Dietrich’s folktale. Perhaps Dietrich was elaborating on what he heard amongst the Dutch settlers? Cid shook himself and understood now why sometimes getting at the precise facts hurt the telling of a good story. “I am a pedantic putz.”
Murphy had returned to the barn, tired after attending to Ted’s little errand, to find Cid guarding what looked to be a large lump of lead and talking to himself. He had the funny feeling he’d missed something while he walked the hillside early this morning. He’d gotten bored of watching Angelo and the deer-woman who were now watching the houses in the hollow. The deer-woman had already shredded most of the population of the middle house. No one else dared to exit the building. She had returned to the graveyard and stood there casting intimidating glares in the house’s direction. Angelo slept in bird form, perched on one of her antlers.