He’d seen things sealed with similar spells from King Solomon’s teachings, but there was something different here—something that would likely go unnoticed if . . .
John looked around the room.
“May I borrow this?” he asked no one in particular, snatching a magnifying glass from a workstation close by.
He brought the magnifier up to his eye and leaned toward the box’s lid again.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What?” Anasatos asked.
“The binding spell has been altered,” John explained. “How so?”
“Whoever did this took the existing spell from Solomon’s lesser key and changed it—made it something altogether different.”
“Now I’m really impressed,” Penderton said.
Anastos stood beside him smiling triumphantly.
“Good work,” he said to John. “And that’s exactly the reason why nobody else has even attempted to open it, and why I recommended you for the job.”
“The alterations to the spell appear to be destructive in nature,” John explained. “If not opened correctly—expertly—the box and its contents will be utterly destroyed.” He leaned in toward the box again, taking another look. “As well as the person attempting to break the spell, I’d guess.”
“Then you’d best be careful,” Anasto said, patting his shoulder.
There was a growing tension in the small glass room that hadn’t been there before. Something was most definitely not right, and John was beginning to sense that maybe he didn’t want to be a part of it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Anastos—Cyril—but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Anastos cocked his head to one side as if confused.
“These seals are serious business,” John started to explain. “Put there by a pretty powerful magick user—or a reason.”
Anastos stared blankly, and then his face broke into a strange smile.
“Of course it was put there for a reason,” he said. “As there was a reason to bring you here to my house.” He paused and then pointed. “Open the box.”
John slowly shook his head, his gaze going to the Devil trap, and then back to his wealthy host. “I’m not going to do that,” he said. “And if that prevents me from gaining access to the items you took from the library, then I’ll just have to live with that, I guess.”
Anastos stared at him blankly and then looked to his man, Penderton.
“He has no idea who he is dealing with here,” Anastos said with a sad shake of his head.
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with, Cyril, but I also know what this is.” John looked to the trap. “Do you see these markings . . . these seals?” he asked. “These are warnings to stay away . . . to keep whatever is locked up inside this box inside this box. I have no intention of unleashing whatever it is in—”
Anastos moved swiftly, taking Penderton’s tablet from his hands.
“I really hate to do this, John,” Anastos said. “I was hoping that we could help each other here, you do something for me and I do something for you. It’s how the world works, really.”
John had no idea what the man was getting at, watching as the multimillionaire fiddled with something on the tablet screen. He then turned the screen toward John.
“Do you recognize this place, John?” he asked.
John stared, mouth agape. Of course he did. It was a shot from outside the Cho Institute.
“It’s called a bargaining chip,” Anastos said, turning the screen away from him again and starting to pull up something else. “My partners thought I might need it, but stupid me, I defended you. I defended you, John. I told them that you were a highly intelligent man and that you and I could handle this transaction like adults.”
He turned the tablet toward him again. “How about this?” It was a shot of Theo sleeping in her bed.
“You son of a bitch,” John muttered. “How did you get this?”
“Keep watching,” Anastos ordered.
There was movement on the tablet screen, and John realized that he was watching a live moment. A man dressed as a security guard directed his phone toward his face and smiled.
“That’s Kevin,” Anastos said. “A recent hire at the Cho Institute. He came highly recommended by one of my business associates. We had him put there just in case a situation like this arose. Personally I didn’t think we’d have to use him, but . . .”
Kevin made it a point to hold up a syringe of some clear liquid and give it a shake.
John’s blood turned to ice. “If you hurt her . . .”
“There’s no reason to even think of such a thing,” Anastos reassured him. “As long as you agree to do what I ask of you. It’s quite simple really.”
Kevin again pointed his phone toward John’s sleeping wife.
“Do we have a deal?” Anastos asked.
John stared, the rage inside him growing, and growing. He tore his eyes from the screen to look at Anastos, and then turned his attention back to the Devil trap.
He had no choice.
“I’m going to need some things.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was amazing how many violent deaths had occurred in some of the most quiet neighborhoods.
The deaths had happened over the years, tragic and terrifying, leaving a mark—a wound—upon reality, before eventually being forgotten.
Although the scar always remained.
That was how the Teacher traveled. That was how he gathered his students.
And on a picturesque street in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, not long after the midnight hour, the Teacher went calling.
He arrived in the backyard of 37 Tremont Street, where young Abby Tisdale had landed after falling from a second-floor window in the summer of 1947. The wound in time and space had called to him, showing him the ghostly echoes of the teen’s demise. In the corridor between locations, the Teacher had focused his thoughts upon the old injury, peeling back the healed-over skin of reality to pass through to his destination.
He stood silently in the cool of the night studying the home before him. His dark lord and master had placed this location in his mind while he slept, the place where his newest student would be found.
The Teacher approached the house, curtains of shadow trailing behind to shield his presence. Climbing the steps to the back entrance, he stopped at the heavy wooden door. He raised his right hand to the lock, moving his fingers, allowing shadow to flow into the keyhole like smoke, and solidified just enough to— Click! The door moved inward with a soft creak and the Teacher entered. The kitchen smelled of wonderful, home-cooked meals. Through the darkness, he stared at the square table across the room, imagining the family sitting there, eating and talking about their days.
Then he imagined how that would change once he acquired his newest student.
The thought of all the fear, misery, and sadness brought a smile to his face, and caused the mass on his chest to tingle sensually as it continued to grow. He stood for a moment in the center of the kitchen, concentrating on finding his student. He visualized the child—a young boy with a head of curly, dirty blond hair—asleep in a room at the end of the upstairs hallway. He had the impression that this newest charge could be difficult and might need some extra attention.
So be it, he thought as he left the kitchen, walking through the dining room to the stairs. The Teacher had a way with problem children—the last to defy him had become much more manageable once he removed all her teeth.
He stood at the foot of them, peering up into the semidarkness, before he began to ascend. He flowed down the hall to the last room on the right, eager for the latest lesson he would teach, and how much closer it would bring his lord to the world.
A sudden sound froze him in his tracks, and the Teacher turned to see a door open and a man step out into the hallway. He was a large man, and he held a gun in one hand.
“Don’t you fuckin’ move!” he shouted, raising the weapon and pointing it at the Teacher.
; The Teacher stood still, his hand on the doorknob to the boy’s room, calmly staring at the man in the hallway.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” the man raged, starting toward the Teacher, the weapon still aimed.
“I’ve come for your son,” the Teacher answered truthfully. “He has much to learn before the arrival of Master Damakus.”
He felt a tug on the doorknob and let go as the door to the child’s room opened. As if summoned, the curly-headed boy appeared.
“What’s goin’ on?” he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
And that was when things became suddenly—active.
The child’s father screamed for his son to go back into his room, but not before the Teacher had reached out and closed his hand around the boy’s wrist.
“Hello there, I’m your new teacher,” he announced.
And then there came a series of explosions, and the Teacher lost his grip on the boy’s wrist as he was picked up and slammed backward against the wall. Dazed, the Teacher looked down at the smoldering, bloody holes that dappled the front of his dress shirt.
The pain was like a living thing, perched on his chest, chattering in his ear, encouraging him to give it all up—to let his life slip away. It was quite insistent, and the Teacher felt himself succumbing, sliding down the wall, to sit down hard upon the floor.
Through bleary eyes he watched his student race from his bedroom and jump into his father’s waiting arms. An overwhelming sense of disappointment washed over him. He had failed. His lord Damakus had chosen him to prepare the world, to teach the young of his dark glory so that he might be reborn to the world.
But now it had been for naught.
He could feel the bullets embedded in his flesh, each one stealing away a portion of his life. It would not be long now, he knew as his heart pumped frantically in a desperate attempt to keep him alive. But he could feel it tiring, slowing down as the blood left him, flowing out from the holes in his body.
The Teacher stared ahead, ready to die, watching as the father held his son in his arms, whispering to him that everything was going to be all right. That the bad man had been stopped . . . that the bad man was dead.
Not yet! the Teacher wanted to scream, but he was too weak, and by the time he could gather his strength, the father’s statement would be true. He closed his eyes, and the curtain of darkness began to fall. The Teacher felt his life force leave him and was about to surrender to oblivion— When something rushed in to replace it.
It was something similar to life, but different. Something that mimicked all the functions of a living being but was not of the earthly realm.
And that was when the Teacher knew he had been touched.
The blessed dark lord Damakus had deemed him worthy enough to continue the task for which he was chosen, and had given him the gift of continued existence.
“Go to my room and call 911,” the Teacher heard his student’s father order from what seemed like many miles away.
New strength surged through him then, and he opened his eyes to another chance at life.
To another chance of preparing this world for his master’s return.
There was no pain anymore as he effortlessly climbed to his feet and strode down the short length of hallway toward the father, who had turned away from him.
Ignoring him in death.
The son saw him approaching his father and cried out, but it was too late. The father turned, weapon in hand, and looked at him, eyes wide with terror . . . terror that would be a lovely tithe for the coming lord.
With a strength that far surpassed what he’d had before, the Teacher gripped the father’s gun hand in his, snapping the wrist like a dry twig, causing the gun to drop to the floor.
“I guess I should thank you,” the Teacher said, pulling the man closer. “Without your intervention, I would not have died and been reborn to fulfill my chosen appointment.”
The father continued to struggle, and the Teacher could feel his fear, more attuned now than he had been before. Another gift from his most gracious and merciful master.
Not wanting to be cruel, the Teacher decided to end the tussle quickly. He wrapped his arms around the father and squeezed with all his might. Again he was surprised by the extent of his newfound strength, as the man’s bones collapsed like the daintiest pieces of crystal.
The Teacher felt the father’s fear abruptly end, and dropped the rag doll of flesh to the hallway floor. His student was gone, but the Teacher knew he couldn’t have gotten far.
He stepped over the cooling corpse, walking to the next open doorway and peering inside. The boy was there, phone in hand, furiously punching buttons.
“There is no time for that, child,” the Teacher said, flying across the room and slapping the phone from his student’s hand.
“You’re going to be late for school.”
What did it all mean?
John pondered the bigger picture as he hovered over the Devil’s trap, the question of why someone, or a group of someones, would want to release whatever it was that had been locked away inside the box a massive distraction to him.
And distraction could prove to be quite deadly.
“Do you have everything you need, John?” Anastos asked from the doorway behind him. He was standing there, along with Penderton and an armed guard. Just in case he decided to act up, John imagined.
“I believe it’s all here,” John answered, attempting to regain his focus. They’d brought him just about everything he could possibly need, even some texts that he hadn’t been sure even still existed. But here they were for his perusal.
He guessed that they had been found in the Demonists’ library back at the monastery. Just a reminder of what could still be there made him practically vibrate, but he didn’t need that distraction as well.
He had a Devil’s trap to open.
In the four corners of the box he noticed tiny carvings, relatively elaborate interpretations of elemental spirits representing earth, wind, fire, and water. He had never encountered one himself, but had heard of Devil boxes so complex that they enslaved spirits of the elements to safeguard the most dangerous of contents.
“Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” John asked. He still held out hope that somebody would come to their senses.
“Just open the trap, John,” Anastos said. “I would hate for Kevin to get bored in your wife’s room. He can be so unpleasant when he’s bored.”
The fact that Anastos was threatening his wife practically sent John into a rage, but he needed to stay focused; any wrong move could prove disastrous on so many levels.
Focusing on his work he attempted to recall what he’d read about these particular Devil traps. If he remembered correctly, each of the elemental spirits was a part of the locking mechanism, and they all needed to be rendered inert at exactly the same time, or they would be unleashed to wreak havoc on the unwary individual stupid enough to be trying to open the box.
He tried to recall the spell or rite he’d need to immobilize the spirits. As he glsnced up from the ancient box, his eyes fell on the stack of texts that had been placed on a nearby workstation.
“Elementals,” he called out.
“What about them?” Anastos asked.
“I’m guessing that somewhere in one of those texts is something that can be used to render an elemental spirit inactive. I need it or we’re done before we can even begin,” John quickly answered.
“You heard him, Penderton,” Anastos commanded his lackey. “Get the man what he needs.”
Penderton headed for the books and Anastos stepped into the room to stand beside John, admiring the box on the table. “I hope this isn’t a way of stalling, to prevent me from getting what I want,” he said.
John looked at him sternly. “If I attempted to open this box any other way, it wouldn’t be good for me, you or anybody else in the vicinity. Whoever sealed this box was very serious about what’s inside, not getting out.”
<
br /> Anastos just smiled, and John felt a sickening weight continuing to grow in his stomach.
“Don’t you worry about that, John. My partners are well aware of what’s inside, and are quite eager to have it free.”
“Found it!” Penderton suddenly announced, turning away from the workstation. He held a scroll, unrolled, in his hands and was reading it as he approached John and Anastos. “I believe this is what you’re looking for,” the man said. “It’s in ancient Aramaic, but if you give me a few minutes, I can write down the translation for you. . . .”
“That won’t be necessary,” John said, quickly reaching for the scroll. “I can read Aramaic.”
Penderton stared, surprised.
“Carry on,” Anastos said, stepping back out of the way.
John read the Aramaic rite of quieting elemental spirits very carefully, searching for specific information on how it could be used to quell all four at a single time. He found what he was looking for in one of the last verses, but continued to stall, not wanting to complete the task.
What choice did he have? He thought of his poor wife, alone with that man at the hospital, and wanted to scream. He couldn’t risk her safety, and if that was the case he had to do what was being asked of him.
But at what cost to the world at large?
He heard new voices chattering behind him and turned on his work stool to see a stretcher being wheeled into the glass room from a freight elevator at the opposite end. A thin, good-looking young man in a hospital johnnie was lying on the stretcher and Anastos gave him the thumbs-up as he approached.
“What’s going on now?” John asked, even more confused than before. “If you want me to get this right you’re going to need to . . .”
“We do want you to get this right,” Anastos answered. “And quickly.”
“Who is this?” John asked, motioning with his head.
“He’s not your concern,” Anastos said.
The Demonists Page 10